Flawed logic is the root cause of many things that go wrong in this country (the other root causes are avariciousness, spite, ignorance and stupidity, but then they are all interlinked), and once more we see that flawed logic on parade in the current fuss about public holidays that fall on Saturdays and Sundays.
Eleven years ago, parliament voted to repeal the law which allowed employees to add on another day of holiday leave to their state-mandated quota if a public holiday fell on a weekend. That was a perfectly rational thing to do, and employers were delighted. Employees did not share that emotion, understandably, but the more sensible among them understood that being allowed to take a day off in September when Labour Day or Sette Giugno fell on a Sunday was irrational even though they were glad of it.
The less sensible, though, were angry about it because they see public holidays as a day off from work to which they are entitled, rather than a commemoration of a national or religious event on a given day.
And that’s where the flawed logic comes in. As the debate is resurrected again after more than a decade because the General Workers Union wishes to try its (very good) chances with Muscat’s government, and bring the old way back with more days off for its members, we are having to listen in brain-pain to all those fallacious arguments once more. But none of them make any sense because the basic point at issue is that a public holiday is given not as an addition to vacation leave to which employees are entitled, but on a particular date precisely to mark whatever it was that happened on that day.
Put simply, the reason Christmas Day is a public holiday is not because it is general holiday leave that is our state-given right, but because Christians mark the 25th of December as a commemoration of the birth of Christ. It is on that particular day that we get not to work, because it is a special day. If Christmas Day falls on a Sunday, when we’re not working anyway, then so be it. We shouldn’t get to take a day off in July to tack on to our summer holiday in Thailand instead.
The flawed logic in the arguments of the General Workers Union, and of those who support its endeavours in this regard, flows from the false premise that Easter Sunday and Labour Day are part of the package of holiday leave entitlement rather than commemorative days which are celebrated on that particular day by normal business ceasing for 24 hours.
The arguments we’re now hearing are not just flawed; they are also increasingly detached from the reality of the contemporary work-place. The days when almost everyone worked in offices and factories from Monday to Friday, for eight hours variously distributed between 7am and 5pm, are long gone. Thousands of us now work a great variety of hours on any day of the week, even on public holidays and even when they fall on a Sunday. This is par for the course for those who have to reach their own deadlines in an independent career path, but it is true also of legions of the employed who work in hotels, entertainment, services, consulting companies with demanding clients who ring for attention even outside normal business hours, and businesses which have to operate every day of the year including Sundays, public holidays and yes, even Christmas Day.
The argument about time off for public holidays which fall on a Saturday or Sunday makes even less sense when you consider that for many employees, the weekend is not Saturday and Sunday but Sunday and Monday. Just two examples are those who work for Sunday newspapers, who are busiest on Saturday but get Monday off, and hairdressers for whom the working week starts on Tuesday and ends on Saturday. People who work in bars and restaurants know no weekends at all; they just get their two days off in the week whenever the shift and roster permit.
Back in 2005, Prime Minister Gonzi’s government, which promoted the change in the law, said that not giving days off instead of public holidays which fell on weekends was important to increase productivity and make Malta a more efficient market. I’d say that by far the more important reason is that anything which helps promote clear and logical thinking in this island of fuzzy thoughts and meandering minds is to be grabbed at with enthusiasm, however obscure it might seem.
This is the bottom line: we don’t work on Christmas Day (and yet many have no choice but to do so) because it is how we mark the 25th of December. If Christmas Day falls on a Sunday and we’re not working anyway because that’s how we mark Sundays too, then we are not working on the 25th of December because it is Christmas Day and also because it is Sunday. But you don’t mark Christmas Day by taking a day off on the 25th of August for a beach barbecue.
If the General Workers Union thinks that its members need more holiday leave, then it should campaign for more holiday leave (and good luck with that), not try to turn commemorative days that are tied to a particular calendar date into general vacation entitlement.
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