[WATCH] GWU exploiting workers’ misery – Salvu Mallia

Salvu Mallia on Community Work Scheme•video by James Bianchi

No self-respecting workers’ union should ever exploit the misery suffered by workers, and the General Workers’ Union should be ashamed of accepting to administer a scheme through which workers would be paid less than others in the same job, according to PN election candidate Salvu Mallia.

Mallia, who was speaking at a press conference at the Nationalist Party headquarters on Tuesday with PN spokesman Carm Mifsud Bonnici and Stephen Spiteri, said that the GWU had shown that – like all the other “bazuzli” – it was only interested in commissions and “a piece of the action”.

He was referring to the community work scheme – a government scheme managed by the GWU for jobless persons.

The union beat two other applicants, clinching the tender for €980 per participant, estimated to be close to 600 individuals, from which it will deduct administrative fees and social security contributions

Archbishop Charles J Scicluna, who held a meeting with the government on Monday to discuss the scheme, said the GWU would have a monthly surplus of circa €115 on each worker.
A rough estimate places the GWU’s administrative fees at €110 per worker.

Mallia said that the scheme was another one of the government’s projects that, at first glance, seemed to be beneficial to many, while a wolf lurked behind the details released to the public.

Mifsud Bonnici said that the new community work scheme under which unemployed persons will be employed by the General Workers' Union was creating a new dimension of precarious work, by allowing the workers to be paid less than others doing the same job.

He said that the scheme in itself included a number of welcome initiatives – such as workers being paid the minimum wage, bonuses and sick leave – but that it created much bigger issues.

He said it was scandalous that workers would be paid leas than others doing the same work, for example.

"How can a union that is supposed to defend workers be chosen to administer a scheme that is creating a new dimension of precarious work?" he asked.

The way the scheme was structured meant that the GWU would have no interest to train the persons and find full-time employment for them, since it would be more profitable for it to keep earning a commission off every person in the scheme, he said.