A claim made by a company spokesperson who said that he prefers to employ elder and mature women to younger ones was investigated by the Employment and Industrial Relations Department which found there was no evidence that the opinions expressed were actually implemented by the company.
The claims were made during a seminar held by the European Parliament representation in Malta on the maternity leave extension, around a month ago.
MEPs Simon Busuttil and Edward Scicluna sat on the panel together with Joe Tanti, CEO of the Malta Business Bureau, Doreen Micallef, vice-president of the National Council of Women, entrepreneur Marlene Mizzi, and Marianne Theuma, a childbirth educator and doula.
During the seminar, a Camilleri Group representative, Charles Camilleri, who participated in the debate, said that he prefers to employ women over 35 because they take less sick leave and maternity leave and are more responsible.
Camilleri Group is one of Malta’s largest chains, which includes popular stores such as British Homes Stores, Mothercare and Camilleri Caterers. Speaking from his experience as an employer, Mr Camilleri had claimed that the solution to avoid the maternity leave option is to employ women who are already mothers.
When contacted by this newspaper, a few days after the seminar was held, the Employment and Industrial Relations Department (EIRD) had said that they were investigating the matter to see if any of the provisions of the Employment and Industrial Relations Act (EIRA) and the Equal Treatment in Employment Regulations (ETIE) were being breached.
Regarding the grounds of discrimination, EIRA prohibits all forms of discrimination. ‘Discriminatory treatment’ is defined in Article 2 as “any distinction, exclusion or restriction which is not justifiable in a democratic society including discrimination made on the basis of marital status, pregnancy or potential pregnancy, sex, colour, disability, religious conviction, political opinion or membership in a trade union or in an employers’ association”.
“This definition is not exhaustive and therefore is not limited to the mentioned grounds. On the other hand, the ETIE Regulations address specific grounds and these are religion or religious belief, disability, age, sex, sexual orientation, and racial or ethnic origin,” explained an EIRD spokesman.
Age is specifically addressed in Regulation 5 of the ETIE Regulations, he pointed out.
Both EIRA and the ETIE regulations tackle discrimination only as far as employment is concerned, and this is a very wide scope as discrimination is prohibited at every stage of the employment life, from the initial advert which is published to the actual act of dismissal, he added.