Has anybody bothered to ring Tony Zarb to see what he thinks?
Come on, Tony, tell us what you think about slave labour in Malta. Or shall we ask Jimmy Magro?
If it weren’t for the press breaking this story, and the ensuing palaver with those stories being shared on Facebook, and people like the woman who commented on this website with her own eyewitness account of Chinese workers being fed food with worms in it and working all the hours God sends, when she was a student-worker at that factory, the police would not have acted.
They only raided the factory now because they couldn’t be seen to be sitting around doing nothing with all that evidence in print.
The newspapers reported that the police and officials in other authorities were bought off with clothing made by the factory. This is not a light accusation. It explains everything, from the way Chinese workers were literally imported to do a job Maltese people were registering to do, to the way they living and working in atrocious conditions and yet remained invisible to the inspectors and police officers who clamp down on everyone else.
Has anybody rung Malta’s largest trade union boss (read that either way and it will still make sense), Tony Zarb? Or is he too busy selling cruises for Orange Travel and organising restaurants for Kasco on the union premises?
Has anybody rung the Police Minister, or is he too busy opening mobile police stations in containers without a planning permit while buying frozen chicken legs at Lidl?
Has anybody rung Justice Reform Commission member and Lotteries & Gaming Authority lawyer (she got the job when the government changed, because it’s what you know, not who you know) Ramona Frendo, given that this slave-labour factory partnered up with her husband’s business, Bortex, for a long while and now makes clothing for Bortex shops?
Has anybody rung Jimmy Magro, ex secretary-general of the Malta Labour Party and now high official of Malta Enterprise, which is responsible for overseeing factories? He was chairman of Leisure Clothing at one time, or have I got that wrong. What I do know is that he used to visit the factory several times a week.
And I hate to say it, but I have got one of those instinctive feelings that we are going to be needing to ring John Dalli about this at some point too, and that his name is going to crop up somewhere.
Maybe we’ll also discover where some of our politicians got their suits.
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Which politicians? Labour or PN? Out with the skeletons in both closets, please.
[Daphne – I wouldn’t know. But I think the newsrooms of the independent newspapers should sit down with a list of all MPs on both sides of the house, and their phone numbers, and ring right through it, asking one simple question: Have you ever had a suit or any form of gift from Leisure Clothing or anybody connected with it?]
I know. My question was directed at the Elves and Midhlas who read this blog.
Fabbrika tal-‘Elf’.
While I agree with you Daphne, in reality, what’s the point?
We all know that whoever did receive a gift from Leisure Clothing will lie about it in order to save his teeth.
I was flabbergasted by the lack of work practices, site safety and non issue of safety equipment to workers at Msida roundabout. Had that been the UK a site inspector would have a field day dishing out 500 pound fines.
Are there not site inspectors, insurance inspectors,temporary traffic management, health and safety officers?
Kollox horrox borrox, what disgusting behaviour and attitudes.
Perhaps we should hear from Lino Spiteri, let’s have him teach us all some more lessons on ethical behaviour – the people that patronised most this country, have the darkest secrets to share.
Saviour Balzan was palpitating about magnificent and modern China. He doesn’t think their factories over there are better, does he?
And that other fool Tweeting about nasty Baxxter who badmouths Singapore and Dubai…
Does anyone know which brand-names are manufactured by Leisure Clothing?
Jaeger, Karen Millen, Aquascutum, Ted Baker, Austin Reed, Whistles, Hobbs, Coast, Daks and Giorgio Armani
Aquascutum! Is nothing sacred any more?
Aquascutum is now owned by the Chinese since 2012.
Bortex too, at one point.
Is this not the “prekarjat” which Zarb has vowed to eradicate in Malta? Talk is cheap – if he does not act now, he will have lost any shred of credibility he may still have.
Ghax il-prekarjat ghall-haddiema Maltin biss hazin. L-ohrajn ma jimpurtax.
Dan hafna iktar minn prekarjat. Dan skjavitu.
Prekarjat mhux illegali, almenu s’issa. Skjavitu huwa illegali u huwa ksur tad-drittijiet fundamentali tal-bniedem.
It’s like reading Roberyo Saviano’s Gomorrah all over again.
So Malta turns out to be a hub after all, yes but for organized crime.
Ding dong.
Cannot believe that Leisure Clothing is supplying Bortex retail shops. Sonny Borg would never have gotten involved with this Chinese Mafia outfit. I worked at Bortex in the early years and know him to be a good employer who treated all employees with respect and dignity.
I suppose Tony Zarb is soon heading towards retirement and sees the next three years as stable enough to do zilch.
What a different landscape it should be when all these fossils start disappearing due to old age.
A shame really, that Labour had to taint the future, in the same way it did in the past, by ensuring that young names are sowed now for future reaping.
Can you imagine Aaron Farrugia and Keith Kasco being there in 30 years time?
How very, very distasteful.
This factory has been operating for 27 years, that is since 1987.
This means that this factory has been operating right through the whole period the PN held government.
Does anyone expect me to believe that no one from the PN side ever noticed or were the books being cooked in a way to look as if all those employees had a decent wage making further hidden profit by the owners.
There PN I’ve given you the excuse to wriggle out of this one.
L-aqwa li ghamilna Malta “hub” tal-financial services, ghaziz bob-a-job.
U issa ghamilnija (a)hub(a) tac-Cinizi, ghaziz Baxxter
(qa)hub(a), but total RESTEPC for your accent.
I’m sure that if the Labour party was as pure as you wish to make us believe, and the PN guilty of not being aware of what was happening, I am sure the Labour media would have willingly given us the tiniest detail.
Not if bazuzli from both sides were on the take. Remember the unpaid electricity bills? Both parties refrained from tackling the issue in an unspoken mutual agreement, because they were both guilty.
Tony Zarb will be unreachable for comment. “No fkomentt” he would surely say. Sure. In the Eighties word went round that the GWU had shares in Leisure Clothing Ltd.
Maybe it still does.
”Prekarjat? X’il-Ottja qed tghidu? Dak spixxa issa!_
Min Jiehu arlogg u min jiehu libsa. Gej il-Milied, hemm xi rigal ghalija?
He will be all full of praise for the excellent quality of clothing they make, and it could be from his personal experience.
Issa daqshekk se nitkellem
If Tony Zarb and the GWU were not benefitting from Leisure Clothing during the PN years they would have named and shamed the company for sure. That’s the way I see it.
And the same for the Labour Party in Opposition, considering the fuss they made about a clock. This is a REAL scandal.
Jimmy Magro was Chairman of Leisure Clothing and had had a heart attack at one of the board meetings.
L-aqwa fl-Ewropa!
Are you that naive, Tanya. Did it ever cross your mind that Tony Zarb ever had a shred of credibility? He has been in a state of hibernation since March 2013.