GWU makes call for more productive investment, less dependence on gaming industry

Addressing the media ahead of next Friday’s MCESD meeting that will discuss next year’s budget, GWU secretary general Tony Zarb said that government must ensure peace of mind to economic operators that no new taxes, tariffs or costs are introduced.

According to Zarb, the country could suffer a severe blow should plans go ahead in Europe to tax the financial services sector.

“GWU insists on the necessity that a special commission is set up within MCESD to monitor Malta competitiveness,” Zarb said, adding that it is high time for a serious discussion to be held within the same MCESD with regards to an economic strategy for the country.

Zarb criticised government’s pre-budget document for what he described as “vague” talk that ignores key economic factors.

He called for serious studies to be conducted between social partners on the state of the manufacturing sector, and called for widening of clean energy usage backed by incentives to boost value added.

While acknowledging references to the need for more investment in research and development in the pre-budget document, Tony Zarb harped on the urgent need to have a venture capital fund set up to support R&D.

On job creation, Zarb said that it was a contradiction that government says that this is a main priority, but also discover that hundreds of jobs have been lost at SmartCity due to government bureaucracy.

Zarb called for more job flexibility and government to incentivise employment on definite contracts rather than allowing what he described as “rampant” abuse of precarious work.

Striking a chord in favour of employers, Tony Zarb stressed that investors must be given assurances that government induced costs are to be limited,  giving them a solid basis to forecast and employ workers  with peace of mind.

Measures

Government, he said, must keep to its promise for income tax reduction while ensuring that revenue must not be dependent on taxes, but also on reduction on expenditure or shelving projects that can wait.  He also said the GWU was demanding a reduction in fuel tax.

The GWU is calling for a review of the Cost of Living Adjustment (COLA) mechanism, proposing it to be calculated on the minimum wage as reflected by NSO workings.

Tony Zarb said that minimum wage earners are condemned to live in a state of poverty, and insisted that the economic hardship faced by a wide-spectrum of Maltese is the result of government induced inflation, namely through increased prices for fuel, gas, water and electricity.

“GWU is proposing that COLA must be revised twice a year, and must be given in full,” Zarb said as he explained that COLA so far only compensates for inflation incurred the year before.

He called for a revision of the national minimum wage, and said that it would be opportune for COLA to be calculated on the average salary.

“We feel that as the minimum wage stands today, it is giving rise to many abuses and workers are becoming even more vulnerable,” Zarb said.

More consumer protection is needed, Tony Zarb said as he called for more vigilance and enforcement against abuses in pricing.

Pensions

On pensions, Tony Zarb said that every bonus given to workers must not be deducted from their pensions, and that pensioners must be compensated in full for cost of living increases as was the case over the past four years, and not have their March and September bonuses deducted.

Self-employed

Tony Zarb said the union had experienced migration of self-employed workers from the Chamber of SMEs (GRTU) and was calling for equal rights for self-employed women.

He said that the GWU wants self-employed women to be paid an equal maternity leave allowance as that paid to women in full-time employment.

“These women pay as much stamp duty and tax as the next person, and they deserve equal rights,” Zarb said.