For the budget back in October The General Workers’ Union had some meek proposals and even those where not implemented. In their [reaction to the budget](https://talk.mt/ara-budget-socjalment-kuragguz/) they had nothing but praise, describing it as ‘socially courageous.’
Like really?? They praised the lower tax rate for working overtime. But is that really a good thing? It shows that employers are not paying people properly and they have to work over-time to make ends meet. Rather than support a proper wage they support this that if anything incentives employers to pay less and eroding the already bad work-life balance.
Praising this measuring shows they either don’t have a basic understanding of the nature of the employer-employee relationship or they are corrupt and are in fact not pushing for the interests of the workers they are supposed to represent.
We have the prime minister advertising in parliament to foreign investment that we have attractive labour market (read poor working conditions) and doing ads for Starbucks on national television because the dB group bankrolls their party. This is the leader of the WORKER’S party.
The finance minister (also from “Labour”) is basically a Thatcherite spouting trickle-down economic nonsense and how essentials workers shouldn’t be paid enough to live. Construction workers get injured and die at an insane rate while being paid peanuts, while the government suppresses or delays regulations to kiss developers’ ass and promoting housing speculation so no one can afford to buy a house.
GWU sees all this and only has praise. It’s ‘socially courageous’
This week they suspended the editor of their newspaper It-Torca for having pro-worker sentiments. [You can’t make this shit up](https://www.maltatoday.com.mt/news/national/114938/gwu_suspends_chief_editor_victor_vella#.Ygveu5Yo9kw). They might as well be an extension of the Malta Employer Association. This “union” cannot represent the working people of Malta in this state.
I am so sick of these party hacks, and I lost any hope in them, yet we really need unions to support vulnerable people. We need to start a chapter of the [Industrial Workers of the World](https://iww.org/) instead of this party-affiliated garbage.
3 comments
GWU and Labour have been in bed together since time immemorial.
The two main unions in Malta are both politically-affiliated, GWU with PL and UHM with PN. They only really act as proper unions when their respective party happens to be in opposition. Nothing new, all depressingly familiar.
Slightly less tax on our part time jobs, so that us youths working 2 jobs to afford mortgage where we don’t even get to spend any time in. Bipartisan politics in Malta has failed us.