The idea that industrial negotiations should hibernate in the weeks and months leading up to the election should be given serious consideration.

We are too late for this in the current legislature, but there is nothing to stop the two sides from coming to terms on it once the new legislature starts.

What industry sources suggested to this newspaper is that all pending negotiations on agreements that the government is discussing with unions are stopped four years into a legislature, or a little bit later than that – say four years and three or six months, they said.

The suggestion was made after so many unions seem to be up in arms in these last weeks to create as much industrial unrest as they could in a bid to try to obtain what they would like to for their representatives just before the election.

The unions know that at this time governments are quite vulnerable – in the sense that the government would not want the waters to be stirred against it and are therefore it is more likely to accede to requests that the unions make, whatever they may be.

In the last few weeks we had the Medical Association of Malta, the Lotto Receivers Union, the GRTU, the General Workers Union and the Union Haddiema Maghqudin all coming up with industrial issues to put pressure on the government.

This prompted the suggestion that such negotiations should stop long before the election campaign kicks off. On the one hand, it would stop unions from thinking they have some kind of power over the administration at a time when it is actually in caretaker mode. Secondly, the government would not be seen or perceived to be seen as dishing out favours and reaching agreements on the eve of an election in a bid to win votes.

It is an idea that it worth thinking about, naturally not at this stage as it is too late.

It is also hoped that such ideas would not end up in the same boat as any electoral reforms that are discussed. Usually, at the start of the legislature, there is a surge in discussions on how the election law should be reformed, but things take long and they never materialize, even because by the time we may be reaching some point of conclusion the next election is round the corner.

Any reforms that are connected with the election – and this includes the industrial relations being discussed in this leader – should be sorted out in the first year of a new legislature.

But perhaps this is as easy as writing on water.