It is being said that one of the main requirements for Malta Shipyards to be in a position to be privatised and for potential interested parties to be interested in taking over this huge entity, is for the workforce to be reduced from the current 1,700 to a maximum of 700 employees.

It is a well-known fact that the present workforce is divided between various managerial, administrative, commercial, and the various trades sections involved in a shipyard industry. In turn, Malta Shipyards group is divided between different entities viz: Malta Drydocks at Cospicua; a Steel Fabrication unit at Marsa (ex-Malta Shipbuilding Yard); Malta Super Yacht Services (within Malta Drydocks at Cospicua); Manoel Island Yacht Yard and the Tank Cleaning Installation at Ricasoli.

Malta Shipyards is managed by an executive management team led by a chief executive reporting to a chairman that is appointed by the government. Each site mentioned above is operated as a separate business unit supported by the central administrative unit, and each unit is managed on a day-to-day basis through senior line managers reporting to the chief executive. The group is wholly owned by the government of Malta.

At a glance this arrangement looks to be far too complex for any one entity to absorb as a private company, and when one considers that Malta Drydocks was once the largest employer of skilled workers in Malta, employing around 6,000 at one time, and which is still looked upon as being the sole livelihood provider of so many workers and their families, this task looks to be insurmountable.

But it has to be surmounted to the benefit of the workers as well as to the country whose taxpayers have been forking out millions upon millions of euros to keep the yard in operation regardless of the very heavy losses and burdens that this has subjected Malta to. This problem has to be solved by the end of this year in accordance with EU requirements.

How are we to go about this privatisation to secure the maximum returns on our assets and at the same time be as fair and as attractive as possible to the current employees, the buyers as well as to the nation?

First and foremost the Malta Shipyards Group has to be sold as separate working units to individually, interested parties specialised in the different five businesses and entities of this enterprise.

It is imperative that the real estate footprint that comprise the whole entities of Malta Shipyards are to be assessed minutely. Areas that can be used for the proposed Grand Harbour development such as Boiler Wharf from the number 2 dock area up to Senglea Point are to be taken over for this development and turned into cruise liner berths with the required facilities.

The same would apply for unused space at the ex- Malta Shipbuilding Yard at Marsa, and the remaining footprint which would include various docks, workshops, berths, buildings, cranes, etc. would be divided as required to facilitate the workload potential of any buyer interested to take over any of the group’s units. The footprint required by any buyer for each unit is then to be rented out to the operators by the government in the same way as shipyards at Marseille, France operate.

Now we come to the thorny issue of the retirement schemes of the workforce.

It is for the potential buyers to decide which trades and skilled workers each of them shall require to run their businesses. It is absurd to say that the workforce has to be reduced from 1,700 to 700 randomly. Which trades are to be kept on and by how many workers? Who of the managerial and administrative staff are to be kept? Who is to be kept, by how many and why? Simply reducing this workforce by a random exercise of issuing retirement schemes application forms is a managerial failure of huge proportions in both human resources as well as financially.

What needs to be done is very simple. Every employee of Malta Shipyards is to complete the retirement schemes application forms in which there should be a clause inserted, specifying clearly that acceptance of the retirement application is to be at the sole discretion and decision of the new owners of each entity who must have the sole and exclusive right to specify how many employees they need, which category and of course who.

Skill, age and experience shall play a good part in who is kept on. That way everyone will be starting from scratch in employment with a new owner, in accordance with that employer’s conditions of employment. Old and obsolete work practices have to be forgotten once and for all. No private business company should be expected to guarantee employment to workers that they do not need as this goes totally against how a private business needs to be operated successfully and profitably.

The job for life that we have been accustomed to is a thing of the past and we must start facing the realities of this century.

Mr Spiteri is a Consultant Marine Surveyor