Lately, I received a one liner e-mail. To protect the identity of the services contractor and the senior public officer, their names are not being disclosed. Hereunder, I am reproducing the e-mail in full. To put you in picture this e-mail brings to an abrupt end the services provided by a services contractor. In the process around 30 workers had their employment at stake.
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Dear Sir/Madam,
Kindly note that you must STOP all services(workplace) as from tomorrow (date). This email is being sent on behalf of the Contracting Authority.
Regards,
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Stamping out all forms of abuse, including those in the labour market is a commendable. However, irrespective of, or for whatever reasons, such a one liner e-mailis certainly not appropriate. A proper, detailed explanation should have been sent to the services provider explaining why the Department of Contracts opted to take such a draconian decision.
Precarious employment has been an issue which was widely debated and still angers the trade unions. Unfortunately, precarious employment was and still is not well defined. This gives room for different considerations and interpretations.The wage structure is only one façade of the issue. There are other issues which should be addressed.
In an attempt to combat precarious employment the Department of Contracts issued Circular 27/2014 dated 23 December 2014 addressed to all Permanent Secretaries, Directors General, Directors and Head of Public Sector Organizations. However, it seems that the Department of Contracts failed to seek proper guidance from the Department of Industrial Relations and Employment.
The model employer, or to put it differently, the largest employer, the public sector cannot and should not flout employment laws and regulations. If anything, the public sector should strive to set and maintain high honourable and principled standards.
Sadly, in this case the Department of Contracts failed.
In a nutshell, the circular introduced new rates of pay for cleaners (offices), cleaners (hospitals & homes for the elderly), care workers, clerical/security as from 1 January 2015 for new service providers. However, in bold black letters the circular states “Conditions and minimum hourly rates for Services Contracts awarded before 1st January 2015 shall remain unaltered.”
This is unjust and highly irregular. This constitutes blatant discrimination.Workers performing the same duties in the same grade within the same company cannot receive different treatment including different wages. This principle is well protected by at least two (2) European Union Council Directives and one (1) ILO Conventionall entrenched in the Employment and Industrial Relations Act.
The proper application of the EU Directives and ILO Convention to protect workers engaged with various Services providers should be a pre-requisite in the contracts awarded by the Department of Contracts.The Department of Contract has no option and should without further delay apply equal pay to all workers in the same grade with the same service provider.
If the Department of Contracts fail to take action they would be legally responsible for sanctioning discrimination amongst workers of the same grade with the same services contractor.
During the past few days Mario Cutajar, Principal Permanent Secretary, was sweating it out in an attempt to improve the image of the Public Service. However, I am not sure whether his efforts were well received by his subordinates and other senior public officers.
It seems that other public officers are well beyond the Principal Permanent Secretary’s grasp, and perhaps are even closer than he is, to the Office of the Prime Minister and thus have a free hand and can apply employment laws at will. The Department of Contracts should relinquish the race to the bottom war on wages and prices and focus more on value added when farming out services.
The public sector is the administrative arm of government and is responsible to deliver a wide-range of services to the general publicbut, in doing so, they are expected to be impartial and to act within the parameters of the laws.Unfortunately, at times, public officers are portrayed in bad light. This assessment is not fair as most of the public officers are conscientious and hard-working executives.
The demarcation line between an efficient public sector and the politically motivated stunts in the public sector are very clear. Transparent!
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