It is upsetting that in the year 2020 we are still living in a country where precarious work is widespread amongst the working community. As a new candidate with the PN, I have encountered endless experiences of employees who are either underpaid or discriminated against as they are paid a lower salary for doing the same job as others in the same organisation, or by working inhumane hours which leaves no time for the much acclaimed work-life balance.

It is also worth noting that the problem runs in various sectors and at all levels. Managerial levels are expected to work long hours, sometimes even requested to work up to 70 hours per week to justify their salary. Anyone who is non-compliant with such requests most likely will face the axe. Many may argue that employees are easily replaceable, if not by a local then by a foreigner who does the same job but for less money.

Unfortunately, this is the by-product of a lack of vision. Adding numbers and importing people by their thousands mostly to sustain Malta's recently created cheap labour market so that our economy will flourish confirms the impoverished mentality of our present policy makers. Unfortunately, these are government induced measures which are having negative effects on the employees' working conditions and their take-home pay.

Even where salaries are concerned, we are still not implementing the equal pay for equal job measure. This applies also to security workers, medical employees, drivers and construction workers. The list is endless. It is utterly shameful that, as a country, we still accept disparity in salary payments between persons with different abilities and their colleagues doing the same job.

There seems to be continuity in everything, even in promoting precarious work.

The government is simply encouraging slavery, lowering standards, lowering wages and enhancing precarious conditions. What value added do these workers give to our islands? How are they creating a situation to attract high-end value job sectors? Where is the Department of Industrial and Employment Relations in all this? Low wages stun productivity and growth, they eliminate any chance for new technology and innovation to induce rising wages of skilled and semi-skilled workers, as these are not the "talent" we are importing.

Government has created zero initiatives for employers to gainfully and responsibly employ workers. Why are we not creating initiatives for employers to employ more, making it more worth it to employ full-time employees rather than sub-contract? Tax initiatives, grants to improve their company's both materially, logistically and operationally?

Why are we not placing the people as the centre of our political mantra? We have yet to see one single value-added project or sector which this government has identified or introduced for our future employees. We are proposing mediocrity, cheap labour and low-paid jobs for the Maltese. By promoting our country as a low-wage haven, this government is doing a disservice to Maltese employees.

The vision put forward by Dr Bernard Grech and the Nationalist Party puts people at the centre of all its political policies, decisions, and ideals. Identifying how we can improve quality of life. This government has based economic growth on consumption, rather than identifying new niches. Our vision is based on investing in people, investing in new ideas and home grown potential. Our vision goes even further, a social pact where innovation, better wages, better working conditions enfaces on work-life-balance and the introduction of the living wage. Our vision is based on taking technology to a new level, but to do this we need more investment and less lip service, less propaganda and less buzz words. 

We need a long-term vision to bring this country back on its feet, not by depending on low income jobs, but on how able we are to enhance our services industry, strengthen our financial institutions and restore our reputation which was badly damaged by this government.

We need to look from within, we have home grown talent that we are losing out on as we are not creating an environment in which to initiate more innovation and push start-ups! We need to invest in technology created by Maltese talent, invest in local creativity and not only promote it. We need to create a situation where investing in start-ups is defiantly worth the return! Initiatives should be at the top of the government's to do list! Create new and Covid resilient technologies and industries by locals and have them exported. We should be leading rather than following!

We need a new forward-looking vision, based on both global and local economies and on how we can initiate growth in both.

Technology based ideas, green jobs, research and development, elderly care, becoming a logistics hub and the evolution of the hospitality sector where we concentrate more on quality tourism than quantity, keeping people as the centre of every proposal, every decision and every idea, creating both immediate and long-term gains and improving the quality of life. This is the PN's Vision, this is the vision I support.