As 6 June draws closer, the demands of running my MEP election campaign, juggled between professional commitments and marriage plans, seem to be taking their toll. Were it not for the fact that I must have lost a kilo or two, the pressure would be unbearable. Though, honestly, it is not so much the pressure brought about by such commitments that irks me than the inability to spend as much quality time as I would like with my loved ones. I miss their company and miss all those little things I loved to do. Never have I come to appreciate the need to strike a balance between one’s work and the rest of one’s life than now.
I was to a certain extent lucky in that I got to choose when and how to balance these two aspects of my life, yet I can only start to imagine what it feels like facing such pressures out of necessity. That is why I cannot but highlight the relevance of the importance being placed by the Labour Party on the need for more decent work that will make for decent lives.
We believe that decent work can only be defined as such if it arises out of the personal choice of the individual. This means that one has to be able to decide whether to take on full or part-time employment, as opposed to being forced to accept precarious conditions imposed by employers on the strength, or rather the vulnerability, of a weakening economy and the threat of redundancy.
Decent work is one where employees are entitled to seek self-development through additional training and life-long learning. It is one that ensures that individuals and their families can enjoy a decent life. A family that is safe in the knowledge that it has unhindered access to health care, free and accessible education, unrestricted access to basic commodities as water and electricity. A decent life is one that allows participation in sports and being able to share leisure activities in a healthy and sustainable environment.
A decent life has definitely nothing in common with the one being led by a significant portion of the Maltese population that is forced to work and, at times, accept work conditions that are anything but decent in order to ensure that their standard of living is retained at acceptable levels and they can hold on to a modicum of dignity in their life. A decent life is not possible when we are constantly troubled by our continuous struggle with an ever-increasing cost of living exacerbated by an insensitive administration that burdens us with taxes and fines in order to make good for its past excesses.
Ensuring decent work and a decent life to all Maltese is one of the main objectives of the PL. It is an objective that from a European perspective is also shared by our colleagues in the Socialist Group, aiming as we are at the development of a social Europe. Our presence in the EU Parliament as part of the socialist group will strengthen our efforts to ensure that our vision for decent work and a decent life is achieved. I myself can only promise to work relentlessly to ensure that this objective is attained and the tangible results filter through to each and every one of you.
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Dr Micallef Stafrace is a Labour Party
candidate in the forthcoming
European Parliament elections.