.png)
.png)
Precarity can only be defeated through 'direct action' – GRTU
GRTU calls on government to take action on precarious employment and “practice what it preaches.”
20 August 2013, 12:00am
Staff Reporter
Staff Reporter
2 min read
Precarious job conditions cannot be tackled by introducing further bureaucracy or by making it nigh to impossible for small businesses to apply for government contracts, Chamber for Small and Medium Enterprises (GRTU) said.
"If small companies are excluded from sub-contracting, surely and not maybe, unemployment would increase," the GRTU said.
The chamber added that the National Public Procurement Agency should not be responsible for employment conditions, but these should be guaranteed by government departments and entities and private companies.
"The GRTU insists that the responsibility should be carried by the Director for Labour and not the Director of Contracts."
In is statement issued today, the chamber warned government that "you get what you pay for," and added that the government cannot expect conditions to improve if it persists in paying low prices for big jobs which require a lot of workers.
"The government should give an example by not awarding contracts to self-employed workers which are precarious according to the law agreed upon by all social partners."
GRTU insisted that a substantial number of persons who are awarded contracts by public entities as self-employed and the same institutions are well aware that these workers are in fact working in precarious conditions.
"GRTU expected the new government to end precarity within its own ranks and is surprised at how the abattoir, a government institution, was allowed to issue a call for self-employed cleaners at a miserly hourly rate of €6.26, from which workers would need to deduct National Insurance payment at the self-employed rate of 15% and VAT (18%) while working eight hours Sundays and feasts included and not being eligible for overtime, leave and sick leave."
The chamber called on the government to take action and "practice what it preaches."
"The solution lays in serious enforcement of existing laws which are among the best in Europe in protecting workers and in allowing all companies compete for sub-contracts," the chamber said, adding that the government should also pay more and pay in time to avoid companies from recurring to precarity.
•
Ghal Grazzja tal-Hanin Alla - Inbidel il Gvern u anki il-haddiem ghaliex ma baqax gurdien (hux hekk kien maghjjar il povru haddiem li ihallas it-taxi u ta rashom kbira jonfqu (Gonzi u shabu.
•
I think that managers should be obliged to maintain management standards which require appropriate training and education (e.g. MBA).
Secondly I believe that all business owners and stakeholders should be accountable to respond to some Government-appointed Commissioner in cases where problems are reported, whether evidence is clear or not.
One of the problems I encounter - amongst legally valid loopholes that lawyers use to excuse themselves from their duties - is that bureaucracy works against the prospective or the engaged employee.
What about self-employed persons, they do deserve the right to be protected as well, because at the end of the this is a human right available to everyone, not just to 'little people'?
