MPT denies delaying union recognition process

Late on Friday evening the courts upheld a request filed urgently by Malta Public Transport against the Union Haddiema Maghqudin.

This followed directives issued by the UHM earlier in the afternoon claiming that the company was delaying the verification process, and ordering the drivers not to collect any fares from the passengers.

With both the UGM and the General Workers Union making claims for recognition, earlier today UHM secretary general Josef Vella said his union had 56% representation as confirmed by the department of industrial relations in its audit.

Vella said that MPT, which is owned by Spanish company Alesa, had failed to give the union recognition even thought it knew the result for days. “It is unacceptable that the company is denying its workers this basic and most fundamental of rights,” Vella said, who was accompanied by Joachim Perez Da Silva, from the Spanish union Sindical Obrera that represents workers from Autobuses de Leon (Alesa).

The Company was only given one hour’s notice about this directive, forcing it to resort to the Courts to stop the Union’s actions as these were deemed to be “illegal and abusive”.

The Court ordered the UHM to immediately stop the illegal directive which instructed the drivers to allow passengers to board the bus without asking for any payment or without obliging customers to validate their travel card.

“The UHM is alleging that the company is delaying the recognition process. This is not true,” Julio Tironi, Transport Division Director for Autobuses De Leon, said.

“Once the company was given the clearance by the courts to be able to carry out the verification exercise, it immediately initiated the process, which is now in the final stages.”

“We want to be sure that the process is done rigorously - this is in the employees’ best interest. We reiterate that we have no dispute with UHM. In fact we only just received the formal report from the Director of Industrial and Employment Relations confirming that the UHM enjoys the support of the majority of the Company's employees this afternoon, after the directive was issued by the UHM.”

“Even if we have not finished the entire process yet, it looks like the UHM has the majority of our employees as their members. If once the formal process is completed in the coming days, this is confirmed, the company will be able to recognise the new Union very soon. This will be a very important milestone to re-start the collective agreement negotiations as soon as possible to the benefit of the employees in particular, and also to allow us to improve the public transport service in the country.”