A strong campaign against tax evasion, a social pact for Malta, an informative campaign on the introduction of family friendly measures in the public sector, a health and safety nation wide awareness campaign, the Euro change over project and the extraordinary general conference on climate change and employment are only a few of the initiatives which the UHM has taken in the recent past. The UHM has now launched another initiative “2015 - People’s Social Vision”.
I write with the intention to stimulate the debate about present and future challenges for UHM and our small island. Malta has been going through a process of economic radical changes. Understandably these changes affected people negatively, some more than others. These changes, however, gave the economy the opportunity to be resilient and grow albeit presently at a rather small pace. Today the UHM is concerned about whether the positive economic results are distributed fairly among members of our society. Today our challenge is to ensure a fair society for all.
In this light presently a small group of my colleagues are engaged in lengthy discussions sessions with the aim to look deeply at social issues.
During these sessions different opinions were floated and challenged from various perspectives. The implementation or otherwise of new social measures remained central in our analysis. Scribbling paper notes covered my boardroom table while pencils had to be sharpened due to heavy pencil underlining or thick black pencil circling highlighted different social priorities.
Identifying the six most sensitive social issues and the way they can be addressed is a huge responsibility. Notwithstanding this, we have identified the following six priorities: electronic revolution, health, the family, education, better quality of life for all and institutional and democratic structures. These themes will now be studied by six different focus groups.
The ultimate purpose of this proposal and analysis is to prepare the pathway and agenda for the UHM to follow in the coming years. This exercise coincides timely with the initial preparations for the UHM’s general conference due next year.
This debate within the different workers’ sections of the union will soon kick off. While group committee meetings and strategy meetings will soon follow for union delegates.
The general conference is the supreme body in which the participation of union delegates is of paramount importance. The theme and the proceedings of the general conference have to capture the imagination and support of the delegates and union supporters. Moreover, our social agenda has to shape the national agenda.
The UHM has to capture an equal portion of the national agenda with government, employers and entrepreneurs to safeguard people’s social vision.
In doing so we have to ensure that we will not make promises we cannot keep. Our agenda has to be realistic, feet on the ground, and above all it has to ensure that it would be of benefit to workers, their dependants and the island.
It is not only the perception of many workers that the aim of most of the EU member states’ present governments, including Malta’s, is to tilt the balance of power in favour of employers and entrepreneurs. We also experience this behaviour. Government and employers are constantly seeking to increase flexibility in the interpretation of laws regulating employment relations.
This does not necessarily constitute a proposal to abolish and undermine collective bargaining but it is making industrial relations more difficult to conduct. Likewise people’s standard of living has been eroding over the last decade. The economy has taken centre stage at the expense of social issues.
Collective agreements by nature do, in fact, serve as the “regulatory body” that limits the range of options an employer has with regard to an individual employee. The range of issues that collective agreements often regulate includes not only wages, but also terms of employment, conditions of work, grievances procedures and a range of clauses all regulating the relationship between an employer and an employee.
The challenge comes from employers and government as an employer. In some cases there has been a growing unwillingness to accept trade unions as collective representatives of employees. In others, while collective bargaining has survived, its purpose has been challenged as managements have established and entered into contracts with employees as individuals.
The “atypical” employment situations have become increasingly typical. Part-time work, short-term employment, casual-employment, definite contract employment, agency work, self-employment, together with outsourcing of work and unemployment have all became more common. These employment situations affect the working population.
Furthermore unions have lately come to be widely perceived as conservative institutions, primarily concerned to defend the relative advantages of some sectors of the working population and retain the status quo. This perception projected by “right wingers” is very far from what is happening today at the shop floor and society.
At the same time there have been numerous positive structural shifts in employment: the decline of most of the traditional textile and associated industries and the growth of a wide variety of service industries, a transformation, partly due to the micro-electronic technologies, and the growth of “white collar” work and the expansion of small and medium-sized enterprises. However, this has brought about a new challenge. Fostering solidarity amongst workers and society is now a major
challenge we face today.
The UHM has two roles, the sword of justice and the catalyst of socially just initiatives. The balance between these two features is mandatory.
One of the challenges is to redefine, the role of trade unionism as the sword of justice. During the last decade the UHM has been a catalyst in promoting and guiding workers on various national issues of importance. Once again in this respect the UHM is presently defining, designing and setting socially just objectives for the future.
In the coming months the UHM will be at the forefront leading workers and their dependants to fight for a socially just society. Today our aim is to influence national policy makers with a 2015 – People’s Social Vision.
Vision 2015 launched by government may have all the necessary initiatives for Malta to excel in various sectors of the economy but unfortunately fails to enhance, introduce and improve socially just measures. The UHM, a people’s union, will take charge and full responsibility to ascertain that the generated national wealth is distributed fairly amongst the citizens.
2015 – People’s Social Vision is a proposal for a fair and just society.
Gejtu Vella is Secretary General UHM
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