That our national carrier, Air Malta, is facing stiff competition from low-cost airlines is acknowledged and recognised by all stakeholders. If as yet not, it should be. It would be pointless to bury one's head in the sand and pretend that Air Malta is not facing huge risks. But just solutions should be sought through meaningful social dialogue between all stakeholders after a viable strategic plan is rolled out, and not because of ministerial threats. Threatening workers with their livelihood is deplorable.
Like all other challenges however, this contest must be addressed thoroughly within the established EU parameters. In view of the previous restructuring financial aid to Air Malta approved in 2012, the airline is not eligible to receive any further rescue or restructuring aid in line with the EU’s ‘one-time, last-time’ principle when it comes to state aid.
During the previous PL legislature, Air Malta was in search of a strategic partner with the hope that our national carrier will be rescued. In 2016, the then Tourism Minister Dr Edward Zammit Lewis had confirmed that Air Malta and Alitalia had entered into negotiations that had been formalised through a Memorandum of Understanding between the two airlines. This opened up negotiations with the hope of seeing Alitalia buy a 49 per cent stake in Air Malta.
However, around mid-January earlier this year, Tourism Minister Zammit Lewis announced that the Air Malta-Alitalia deal had fallen through. But he was quick in stating that government had other prospective investors interested in injecting funds into Air Malta, although he refrained from divulging timeframes and other important information, such as who were the prospective partners and when was the deal to come to fruition. As one can easily understand, the anxiety of Air Malta employees increased substantially, as they were kept in the dark about their employment with the national carrier. Although the PL, by tradition, is projected to be more willing and amenable to emphatise with workers when problems surface at the place of work and where workers are left in the dark about their future, once again, this time in the case of Air Malta nothing was disclosed; this notwithstanding that government is bound to give all information to the employees in line with the EU Directive 2002/14/EC that establishes the general framework for informing and consulting employees.
Instead of addressing the concerns of the Air Malta employees, Dr Konrad Mizzi, the new Tourism Minister, recently threatened all Air Malta workers with the axe, metaphorically speaking, of course. Never before Dr Mizzi had any of the former ministers responsible for Air Malta gone as far as to announce Plan B. Minister Mizzi did not mince his words, and little did he care about the implications and the negative impact that his statement would leave on the Air Malta workforce, their dependants, the tourism sector directly and other workers engaged in supporting industries. Nor did he care about prospective partner/s and investor/s who may have been considering the possibility of providing Air Malta with the required cash injection.
As if this statement was not sufficiently in bad taste, Dr Mizzi pledged that government would be prepared to close down Air Malta and declare all employees redundant if an agreement with the workers’ representatives is not reached and concluded on the terms and conditions indicated. Loutishly, Dr Mizzi added that government will concurrently be preparing to operate a new legacy-free airline, engaging a number of workers with different conditions of work from those currently had by the Air Malta staff.
The recent statement by Dr Mizzi cannot be taken lightly or considered as a slip of the tongue, as his comments are consistent with the legal action which the 1996/98 MLP administration resorted to when faced with strike action at the Malta Freeport. Somehow, although the PL has always been touted as the political party closer to workers’ rights and the improvement of the overall conditions of work, it was under different MLP administrations, and now the current PL administration, that the right to strike has been challenged and efforts were made to suppress this right which is enshrined in our employment and industrial relations legislation. Furthermore, Malta is a signatory to the International Labour Organisation (ILO) Directive which from its very earliest days, more specifically during the second meeting in 1952 of the ILO’s Committee on Freedom of Association, declared strike action to be a right and laid down the basic principles underlying this right, from which all others to some extent derive. The Directive recognises the right to strike as one of the principal means by which workers and their associations may legitimately promote and defend their economic and social interests.
Minister Mizzi’s statement mirrors the highhandedness adopted by the late UK Conservative Party Leader and Prime Minister Mrs Margaret Thatcher during the bitter industrial strife with the miners in 1984/85. Let’s hope that this is not the attitude that Minister Mizzi intends to adopt when divergences with workers and their representatives arise. Minister Mizzi was quick to threat workers with redundancies, yet he was not so quick when faced with the serious allegations of the Panama scandal. It looks like a case of two weights and two measures. Workers irrespective of their grade and responsibility they carry should be treated with respect and dignity.
Gejtu Vella
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