From Mr M. Grech

I refer to the letter “What are Gozitan employers doing wrong?” by Reno Grech of Victoria (TMIS, 24 June). I would like to clarify the sentences Mr Grech quoted from my article published in the fourth issue of The Malta Economic Update of 2006.

The reference to the “huge amount of division” and the “personal pique and hatred” relate mainly to the lack of cooperation between business people who still think on the lines that in order to be successful in life you have to put obstacles or do harm to other people who are in your same line of business. In today’s economic world the word “competitor” should be taken as “colleague”. If people realise that there is strength in numbers then they would surely discover that huge benefits could be reaped by cooperating with each other instead of trying to destroy one another.

On the other hand, yes, there are still some employees who think that their employers are getting rich while they are taking home only a modest salary. Here the employee has to stop and think about the risks his employer is taking with his capital in order to create work. What about the many hours these businessmen put into their day, including Sundays and public holidays, and the sacrifices their families have make because they are never home? Yes there may be employers who are committing injustices. There may also be the occasional employer who uses the economics of supply and demand of work to pay his employees a low salary. I am also totally against this. However the issue of “us and them” has to be erased once and for all.

Turning to the issue of people looking for jobs in the public sector, I can confirm that the mentality is still that these are “cushy jobs for life”. It is here that the government has to establish new, stricter guidelines that cushy jobs do not exist and that everyone has to do his or her utmost to give back 100 per cent on the wage he/she earns. The likes of Minister Austin Gatt, who was brave enough to stamp out this kind of nonsense and make it clear to one and all that there is no such thing as a free lunch, have to be really commended.

People have always been free to work wherever they wanted. The real bridge that needs to be built is between people.

Michael Grech

PRO

Gozo Business Chamber