GWU and Arriva reach agreement

The General Workers Union and Arriva Malta have reached an agreement on the roster schedule, and called off industrial actions.

The rosters have now been amended, with overtime paid at the rate of 1.5 hours, and split-shifts taking place only once a week.

The GWU action started yesterday with service being disrupted at 8pm till 5am, after the union said Arriva was not accepting its proposed roster.

Talks held at the Department for Industrial and Employment Relationships (DIER) earlier today, saw Arriva and the GWU reach an agreement that effectively resulted in the suspension of the industrial actions called by GWU.

The agreement, reached through the intervention of DIER Director Dr Noel Vella, will see Arriva and the GWU resume discussions about Arriva drivers' rosters.

To this effect, GWU has agreed to continue with the exercise that was started last Tuesday and which saw Arriva handing roster data and other information to union representatives so that GWU could explore other models of roster implementation that would meet its members aspirations without impacting the company.

Arriva and GWU will be meeting again to discuss the results produced by this exercise and to see if these can be implemented across all rosters. Following that meeting, Arriva and GWU representatives will convene to assess the situation at that point.

The agreement reached between Arriva and GWU will also see Arriva temporarily paying overtime on any schedule duties that exceed 10.5 hours from sign-on to sign-off, with the exception of spread-over shifts, where overtime will be paid when the shift exceeds 13 hours.

Arriva and GWU have also agreed to continue discussions with respect to the non-financial aspects of a collective agreement, with meetings resuming next week.

Arriva yesterday said it would not fire the striking employees, but CEO Keith Bastow said the company had identified key members of staff who were expected to work during the strike, and recommending them to take notice and abide by their legal requirements.

Bastow said that while Arriva was within its rights to fire striking workers, he said he would not fire drivers "who were doing a sterling job. It is not a issue with members of my staff but with the GWU."

The General Workers Union ordered industrial action over claims that Arriva Malta has not yet changed its 'long and inhumane' rosters for bus drivers since it first started operating four months ago.

Arriva said a roster proposed by GWU was never presented, and could not be tested by the company. "We were disappointed to learn from the media that the GWU had ordered the industrial action, given that we were fully compliant with the agreement last week. I was lost for words," Bastow said.

The GWU has condemned the "threats" by Arriva against the public transport employees who will be obeying industrial orders.

"We categorically deny rumours appearing in the media that Arriva was last Tuesday testing the roster proposed by the GWU. We were never informed of this by Arriva. The threats against workers are exaggerated... maybe Arriva is picking up on the way British prime minister Margaret Thatcher treated workers. The same tactics are being employed here," the GWU said in a statement.

The GWU said the Arriva roster was anti-social and had been protesting about this since July. "Up until today, Arriva is refusing to change the roster. We are ready to accept an invitation by the industrial relations director to convene a reconciliation meeting without taking industrial action. But Arriva did not answer to this invitation."