The General Workers’ Union has been ordered to to pay a former secretary of the union’s services and media section €21,702.14 plus interest payable from 12 December, 2008 until payment is affected.

Karmenu Vella had resigned from the union in September 2006 due to disagreement with the GWU’s central administration.

Mr Vella had publicly declared that what the GWU was not practising what it preaches.

Mr Vella claimed that according to a memorandum of understanding dated September 1999 and which regulated the conditions of work of GWU officials such as himself, secretaries who terminated their job from the GWU were entitled to €5,104.14 or the equivalent of their final three months’ wages.

Mr Vella also claimed €16,598, the equivalent of his unused vacation leave.

The union had requested the court not to hear the case, which, it argued, should have been lodged with the Industrial Tribunal.