GWU miffed at Abela junior for assisting breakaway Arriva union

News that one of Labour's prospective candidates has taken up the cudgels on behalf of a new house union for Arriva bus drivers has irked the General Workers Union no end, MaltaToday is informed.

GWU officials were reported to have expressed vocal resentment with Labour party sources that Robert Abela, son of the union's former lawyer (now President of the Republic) George Abela, was acting on behalf of a breakaway union representing some 170 Arriva drivers.

Privately, the GWU is understood to have been resentful of George Abela since he left the union in 1999, and went on to aid former union officials who resigned from the union's council on bad terms.

Abela had also assisted in setting up another breakaway union consisting of former GWU members: the Malta Dockers Union, when the port's docking operations were taken over by a private entity, the Tumas Group.

On his part, Robert Abela responded to reports of the GWU's complaints by declaring that his involvement was purely that of a legal aide to the new union's efforts to have their demands recognised by the Arriva management.

"If a client asks me for my assistance, I assist them, nothing more," Abela said. "I hope they are not irked that a lawyer is assisting a group of workers."

Abela said he had in the past also offered his cooperation to the GWU. "I offered to work hand in hand with the union but I always found the doors closed. I met them to offer my assistance on this matter, but they never got back to me. Although they verbally told me they were ready to work with, that meeting never came and the Arriva drivers were ready to go forward.

"Initially, I didn't want to be the lawyer of a house union but wanted to work together with them to work towards a new financial packet."

Abela also told MaltaToday that he has not yet submitted his candidature with the Labour party for the next general elections. "My position is one of interest, but I'm not saying yes or no yet," Abela said.

George Abela, a former deputy leader of the Labour party, was the GWU's legal advisor after his resignation from the PL in 1998. In August 1999, he was one of the union officials who sat in front of a police coach transporting a number of workers who had been arrested during industrial action at Malta International Airport.

But a few months later, he resigned from the union, in disagreement with the GWU's handling of the court case filed by the government against the union.

Relations deteriorated further in 2007, when GWU port workers appointed George Abela as their legal representative in discussions with the government on port reform. A few months later, the majority of the port workers left the GWU to form the Malta Dockers Union, depriving the GWU of its strategic power in the ports.

Abela also defended former union stalwart Josephine Attard Sultana in the industrial tribunal after her dismissal from the union.