I refer to the letter The law courts and the UHM (TMID, 24 March).

Mr Vanni Galea, in his capacity of director general (Court of Justice Division), said that the law courts administration has committed itself to give the union a formal official reply, regarding the payment system for court marshals (for when they perform custodian duties after normal working hours), as soon as discussions are concluded with the Finance Ministry and with the Management and Personnel Office – and he had every right to do so.

However, I would like to make some clarifications about points which Mr Galea did not mention in his letter,.

For example, from Mr Galea’s missive your readers could think that the UHM sent Mr Galea the proposals last week, when we had actually delivered these proposals five months ago, in October. The UHM has since sent a reminder to Mr Galea and all correspondence was copied to the OPM (Management and Personnel Office) but Mr Galea keeps giving us the same answer – as stated in the last paragraph of his letter, “The law courts administration has committed itself to give the union a formal official reply as soon as discussions are concluded”. I would like to ask a simple question to whoever is responsible for this issue: what kind of accountability is this?

I would like to point out that the payment system for court marshals has not been revised for more than 10 years. Even though the UHM has always believed that issues should be resolved around a negotiation table, we still mean business and will resort to industrial action if this situation persists.

Dragging feet for five months is not acceptable. A meeting with the court marshals has been set to discuss industrial action, which will come into force in April so that the ultimatum will be respected.

I hope that while celebrating Worker’s Day in the coming weeks the UHM receives this “formal reply” without any lame excuses and ensuring the avoidance of industrial action.

Edwin Balzan

Secretary

Government Employees Section

UHM