Whenever election time rolls around, proposals for political parties’ electoral manifestos come a dime a dozen and most are more than just a little predictable in that the vested interests of pressure groups and the constituted bodies are glaringly obvious.
But when a group of respected academics joins forces to present a memorandum to the country’s political parties on their particular area of expertise, we would all do well to listen to what they have to say.
And that is especially true when the topic is employment, where both of the main political parties have so far stuck to their old lines – one which continually proclaims that it has created 20,000 jobs and another that continually insists quite to the contrary and which claims only it can create the employment conditions the country’s citizens deserve – mixed messages that fail to delve into the heart of the matters at hand and instead leave most people in the wilderness.
In this case the academics are the staff at the University of Malta’s Centre for Labour Studies who in a memorandum sent to the country’s political parties yesterday morning, urged the Nationalist Party, the Labour Party and Alternattiva Demokratika to ‘boldly address’ a number of employment-related key policy issues in their electoral programmes.
The issue of ‘decent work’ was the first issue raised. The CLS has suggested private companies be offered incentives such as tax credits to promote decent work by investing in suitable education and training (including training in occupational health and safety), skills development or retooling, and other opportunities for career development, while also urging parties to consider more initiatives to ensure and promote actual decent working conditions in Malta.
On the disproportionate level of female employment, parties were urged to consider proposing that school opening hours be increased, possibly through non-academic activities, which would also cover all holiday periods and be extended to all schools within a specified period of time, as well as a more rapid investment in childcare, possibly by opening up such services in all schools through private/public partnership schemes.
Low income families looking to make use of childcare services but who do not qualify for related tax credits, should be supported in other ways, the memorandum proposes, and that employers should also be supported and encouraged to introduce childcare services at company level or through the clustering of such services.
It was also proposed that a non-transferable father’s quota for paid parental leave be introduced so that the burden of child rearing is divided more equally between the parents.
On the thorny issue of quotas in the boardroom for women, the CLS proposes that parties take action to aim for “a greater and better gender balance is achieved in Maltese corporate boardrooms and that an extension to more private organisations beyond those stipulated in the EU Directive are considered”.
The CLS also recommends that measures be taken to encourage private employers to consider setting up a trust fund that pools collective worker shareholding – a very interesting proposal and one that is all too rare here in Malta.
On the thousands of irregular migrants that have come to cal Malta home over recent years, the CLS notes that such people’s skills, qualifications and professional backgrounds that remain largely underutilised. The CLS proposed that the Employment and Training Corporation ‘makes more of its services available to all immigrants whose status enables them to access the labour market’.
Moreover, the CLS urged that a Temporary Work Agency be set up and be specifically aimed at helping irregular immigrants integrate in the Maltese labour market and match employers’ demands.
In the area of employee information and consultation rights, the CLS notes that various EU directives relating to employee information and consultation rights have been transposed into local legislation over the last years, but that their “implementation in the Maltese workplace remains lacking, particularly in those workplaces where there are no recognised trade unions”.
The Centre proposed that information campaigns be developed and carried out to increase the awareness of employers and employees about information and consultation rights.
With a healthy and sustainable environment being considered crucial to development, competitiveness and quality of life, the CLS proposed that the government ‘aligns policies in favour of greening the environment with suitable labour market policies aimed at strengthening investment in the green technology industry and incentivising R&D initiatives in this regard. Capacity building and lifelong career guidance practices are required to improve the ‘goodness of fit’ between labour and environmental policies’.
In the area of lifelong career guidance, has proposed that the government sets up a National Career Guidance Centre, with the goal of sustaining cohesive and consistent lifelong career guidance services through research, information, training and the setting of quality standards. The NCGC, it proposed, would cooperate with government entities and social partners in order to connect and professionalise career guidance services.
With another two months of election campaigning still ahead of the country, and with a still unquantifiable amount of tit-for-tat petty political arguments lying in wait, more such assessments that cut out the political nuances and get straight to the point of what is needed for the country to cure some of its ills would be most warmly welcomed by the electorate.