Work gives dignity to the person – PM

Whilst tomorrow the Nationalist Party will not hold its customary 1 May political activity due to the beatification of Pope John Paul II, the PN today held a round table conference to close the activities it organised to celebrate Workers’ Day.

Addressing the conference, Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi said May 1 not only celebrates the worker, but it also reminds how much dignity work gives to a person. “Through work, a person fulfills his or her full potential,” he said.

Gonzi added that whilst importance is given to work, one must balance between work and family: “The world is changing in front of our eyes. Technology, quality of life, work and family are constantly evolving and we must adapt to them,” Gonzi said.

He added, “we are a lucky generation because we are living in times of great changes. Whereas before change would happen over a span of 20 years, nowadays times change basically every six months.”

However, he added, whilst one must adapt, he or she must not lose those simple things which made childhood worthwhile.

Quoting Olivier Friggieri who has said “childhood is becoming obsolete”, Gonzi said if one does not pay attention to the experiences “we lived, our children’s childhood will truly be lost”.

Gonzi went on to say the aim of the round table conference was to discuss how the balance between family life and work can be achieved.

He added that family-friendly measures are at the core of this balance, and whilst government has already invested in such measures, it must do more. “However, considering that many measures are relatively new, the outcome was positive,” Gonzi said.

He said that more families, especially women, were taking advantage of such measures. “Government has increased tele-working, parental leave, career breaks, adoption leave has increased to 14 weeks and more childcare centres have been opened,” he said, adding that government is now working to help those families who foster children.

Quoting from the Public Sector report of 2009, Gonzi said 2,750 women and 540 men have made use of family friendly measures: “Together, this means that almost 10% of the working population in the public sector are making use of these measures.”

Gonzi said that following the one year income tax holiday for every first child born in 2007, some 7,521 women returned to work. “Together, they saved €7.5 million in taxes,” he said.

Amongst those who participated in the conference, was also lawyer Alex Perici Calascione who said political parties face a challenge with evolving times.

“Whilst keeping strong to its beliefs, a political party must at the same time evolve to the new times. A party must aim at having a message which is relevant and alive and is easily understood by the public,” Perici Calascione said.

He added that work, education, health and environment all affect family life in one way or another and thus politicians should direct sustainable investment in society through family-friendly measures.

“But what one say with words, one must practice with facts,” Perici Calascione said.

Following the introductory notes made by Perici Calascione and Gonzi, the conference was then closed to the media.