While most industries in the country start winding down for the hot and sultry months of August and September, the media braces itself for what is known, in these circles, as the silly season.
The moment parliament rises for summer recess (as happened on Wednesday), the wheels slowly grind to a halt with journalists and reporters scrabbling for any bit of copy deemed newsworthy – in a sense it is like being caught in the doldrums, with no wind in your sails and no land in sight. Even our hard-working (!) politicians take a break and allow people to enjoy a relatively politics-free month.
Work does go on in the background, particularly in the field of drafting of laws, ready to be put to parliament once it reconvenes in September. But all in all, it pretty much goes dead. It does not do it all at one go, issues tend to peter out and people simply cannot be bothered to follow them up. It’s all about barbecues, beaching, eating al fresco and going on holiday.
Nevertheless, when some news does come about – it tends to come as a bolt out of the blue. It is indeed quite shocking when news starts to filter out about a murder, or a mass protest, or indeed a strike.
This year, might be different though. We know that Jeffrey Pullicino Orlando has got the ball rolling on divorce. It is already the topic of many conversations, but one can rest assured that opinions, for and against, will start to come out over the next few weeks.
One must also bear in mind that this is no ordinary summer. This is summer 2010, the year the human race realised that it cannot live at the pace it was living at before. We thought it was progress, but ultimately, it proved that we were living beyond our means in terms of economy, finance, morals, the environment and employment.
In other words, the world (Europe) cannot afford to stop and it is unlikely that Malta will experience the paralysis that normally engulfs the country, particularly towards the Santa Marija season.
It is clear that our usual philosophy of the entire country taking at least half the month of August off will not work, excuse the pun, in the current climate. It is amply clear that businesses will have to somehow keep ticking over and productivity will have to be maintained. In the post-Lehman world, productivity has become the largest single benchmark to be used in analysing the viability of economic activity and investment. In very simple terms, if what employees produce is not worth the while to finance, then I might as well not be in business at all.
And this is where trade unions need to be responsible. While companies have their own responsibilities towards employees, unions must be ready to give more concessions than in the past. While it is obvious and clear that employees should fight tooth and nail for the best conditions possible, they should never cut their nose to spite their own face. If the demands which are on a company, whichever it may be, are too much for it to handle in terms of remaining profitable, at least in the short to medium term, they will simply pack their bags and leave. Unions must now focus on reaching compromise, mostly amongst their own members who might be locked in a dispute.