Mhux fier, Sur President
Oh baby, I love your style
One week down the line and Labour’s Toni Abela is trying to embroil the president in a partisan mess already. He appears to imagine that because the president was once legal counsel to the General Workers Union, then he should feel some kind of personal wish to intervene in the latest mess that the union has got itself into.
And while we’re about it, I must ask: why is the deputy leader of the Labour Party intervening on behalf of the General Workers Union? The last time we looked, that was the only Maltese marriage to end in divorce within Malta’s jurisdiction.
Malta Freeport – a commercial enterprise and not a sort of latterday communist version of Marie Antoinette’s toy farm, like the dry docks – has slapped a great big garnishee order on the union, to the tune of €1 million. Please don’t all cackle with delight. The garnishee order followed on from some kind of strike action ordered by the union, which Malta Freeport says caused it considerable commercial damages. Yet the union doesn’t seem to mind when its actions weaken the business which employs its members, further engendering the risk of unemployment.
Now the General Workers Union is saying that all its assets are frozen because of the garnishee order, and this means it can’t operate. Well, I hate to point this out, but now the union knows what it feels like to be on the receiving end of damaging behaviour. It’s been dishing it out for decades and now it’s all upset because a commercial enterprise has turned the tables and done something which paralyses the union’s operations, after all these years of having the union paralyse other people’s operations.
Toni Abela told a meeting of the General Workers Union’s youth group that it was a “dark day for Malta” when the law courts gave the garnishee order. A dark day for Malta? Abela tends to come out tops in the fatuousness rankings, but he outdid himself here. Most people don’t give a flying billy-goat about the GWU and its garnishee order.
We see it as a problem the union brought upon itself and now has to solve itself. A dark day for Malta, on the other hand, was that day six years ago when the Labour leader got up on the back of a lorry, looking seriously the worse for wear, and declared that he was going to ignore the result of the EU referendum because it hadn’t gone his way.
But that’s behind us now, no thanks to Toni Abela and the General Workers Union. What isn’t behind us is the raging idiocy of the Labour Party, which persists in trying to convince us that it is a circus act and not a government-in-waiting. Abela has criticised the government for behaving as though it is a spectator in the Great Big GWU Garnishee Order crisis.
Well, what can I say? The government is behaving like a spectator because it is a spectator. This is between the General Workers Union and Malta Freeport, a commercial enterprise which is claiming material damages from the union and wants to ensure that the union has the money to pay them. The union does not have special status at law in a situation like this, nor should it. It is not free to cause materiall damages to others while being protected from those others when they seek redress.
And then Toni Abela called on the president to stick in his two cents’ worth and intervene. This gives us some idea of how people of Abela’s mentality are thinking, issa li ghandhom president minn taghhom. They expect him to behave like some kind of party parrinu for Labour-linked causes.
That’s not how Toni Abela put it, of course. He said that he is calling on the president to intervene because the president is a principled man who believes in workers’ rights and democracy.
George Abela should make it immediately clear that he intends to stick to girl-guide parades and boy-scout fund-raisers, and Toni Abela and Tony Zarb and their self-created battles be damned.
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I would like to add some more comments. In 1997, when the Freeport took court action against the UHM and requested Lm1 million in damages, no Toni Abelas came out and asked the president to intervene. And neither did the GWU came out in support of the UHM but left the UHM to fight the issue alone. So now the GWU can fight out the matter in court and leave the president alone.
Q: “What’s Left?”…A: 9 days to a Pulitzer Prize for MaltaStar
(pronounced “PULL-it-sir”)…
…“PULL-it-Sir”…is the way… “Jisimni Toni u kunjomi Abela”…is reported as acting towards President George Abela.
http://www.maltastar.com/pages/ms09dart.asp?a=1009
…but does Joseph Muscat…the middle hand… know that his “Left hand” doesn’t know what the “Right hand” is doing?
A member of the present triumvirate is expecting support from a former member of a former triumvirate.
Triumvirate…3 pairs of hands?…izda mhux sodi!
Oh I forgot the Labour Party thinks it is above the law. And people still vote for it. Where is Joseph Muscat, or was he temporarily replaced by Toni because he was whipped into eating Big Macs with his family?
“….calling on the president to intervene because the president is a principled man who believes in workers’ rights and democracy….”
The PL has never believed in workers’ rights and democracy. Workers’ rights and democracy have been the hallmark of most principled men and women and the PN and these last two decades. Which kind of leaves the PL out on a limb really….
As for the president intervening – on what basis should the president intervene? Maybe now the PL think that since one of theirs is occupying the highest constitutional position that they can re-shape it to wield the dictatorial power they so crave. Viva id-demokrazija – PL style!
Well put. Mr. Abela, in concert with his comrades, only open their mouths to change feet.
You missed a small piece of evidence of Toni Abela’s slyness. Before being elected to the presidency, George Abela was the dockers’ union’s lawyer. Toni Abela therefore seems to be trying to embarrass the president – typical of New Labour’s new style.
I had not long been resident here before coming to the conclusion that what Malta urgently needs is trade union reform similar to that imposed by Mrs Thatcher. At the moment trade unions, particularly the GWU, are more likely to cause the loss of jobs than save them. There is too much power in the hands of trade union leaders who often seem more preoccupied by their petty, self-serving interests than the long-term future of their members. Leaders calling for the withdrawal of labour should need the approval of their members voting in a secret ballot adjudicated by an external & independent body. That would clip a few wings and, more importantly, be a boost to the economy.
You’re so right Mr Wagstaff. …but I’m afraid that this is Malta and cowboys rule. Are you aware that the Leader of the Opposition, with close to half of Malta backing his party (though not necessarily all behind him) last month declared that he is going to take class action (in itself impossible in Malta) against the government about a V.A.T. issue?
Would you believe that in the same breath he promised that should the court not decide in his favour he would actually ”change” the law? How responsible is that, and what an example to his followers about his own respect for the rule of law. By the way Mr. Wagstaff, the union in question is the one that partners the man’s very own Labour Party………so yes, where are you Mrs Thatcher?
At long last the GWU got what it deserved.
Better tighten your belt, Mr. Toni Zarb!
Varist has the cheek…anzi! make it 4
http://www.l-orizzont.com/news.asp?newsitemid=52720