Read this and be shocked
These are just three of Leisure Clothing’s employees (Vietnamese, not Chinese) who had the guts to speak out – and the support of human rights lawyers Katrine Camilleri and Michael Camilleri.
They only reported the matter because they were caught trying to flee from Malta using false papers – because they did not have access to their own passports.
You can assume that the rest are treated just the same and perhaps even worse – but there is no way they are going to speak out because they are Chinese serfs working for a company owned by their totalitarian communist government, and they still have families back home.
I quote from the report in Times of Malta:
A DIER representative, Antoine Grech, explained to the court that the company did not actually pay their employees but placed their wages in a safe deposit box at the office and the workers would then need to fill in a specific form if their required any of the money they earned.
The whole idea was so that the workers had a large sum to take home when their contract expired and they are repatriated.
Mr Grech said the workers did not even have a copy of the contract that they had signed in Vietnam before their arrival in Malta.
(…)
Between November and the end of March they worked for for an entire week between 7am and 9.30pm and then had one day off the following week. They had a break of one hour and 15 minutes.
Between April and July they worked the same hours but had a day of rest once a week.
The three foreigners told the DIER that they only received €600 for the eight months they spent working for the company.
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There is a nation within a nation in Malta.
I do not think that these three workers had a special contract tailored for them.
It is a great shame that this is happening in Malta.
Leisure Clothing’s defence lawyer is dismayed because the media are giving such publicity to the matter. He felt it important to declare to the court that he knows who leaked the story.
He seems to be unaware that it is these three workers who spoke out.
He claims that the truth will come out. Is he implying that the workers are not saying the truth?
He has every right to defend his client, but portraying these workers as not saying the truth is something else.
We await Leisure Clothing’s version of the truth.
Who gives a damn whether Pio Valletta is dismayed or not. Fact is that these Chinese/Vietnamese workers are being fleeced by people without a social conscience, like himself.
Bravo.
Dak prekarjat PRIM! That’s why they didn’t mention the word again after March 2013!
And where is Marie-Louise Coleiro when you need her?
Doing the rounds of the schools to collect money for “the poor”.
The GWU is conspicuous by its total silence on the matter. Where is ADITUS by the way?
Checking the amount of funds coming in their way from Europe with the flimsy excuse that they are working day and night in favour of poor illegal immigrants.
And I assume this company is still business as usual?
X’ser tghid il-GWU? Kif ghadha ma qalet xejn?
Jien ma nemminx li ma kienux jafu u mhux huma biss imma awtoritajiet ohra lura fis-snin.
Hemm bzonn li ssir inkjesta serja biex dawk kollha li kienu responsabbli ghall dan kollu jiehdu dak li haqqhom minnufih.
Now why would who leaked the story matter? If there were no irregular practices there would have been no story to leak.
Keeping employees’ wages in a safe deposit box in the possession of the employer is an eyebrow raising practice in itself. Which other innovative ideas have been put into practice one wonders?
That’s a curious thing with Labour tweeters or newly/disgruntled NP/ freshly retained others whose linked accounts mushroomed almost overnight in the past two weeks: their tweets focus on the messenger not on the message.
Vapid at source, no matter the supposed intellect.
There was never a shortage of elves.
“He also said the company was disgusted by the way the ongoing investigation is being reported in the media, which, he claimed, was going overboard. He also said he knew who had leaked the story to the media and said the truth would come out in time.”
http://www.independent.com.mt/articles/2014-11-12/local-news/Vietnamese-workers-say-they-are-owed-50-000-by-Leisure-Clothing-worked-14-hour-shifts-7-days-6736125538
Is the last sentence a threat?
Attacking the media will backfire on the defence lawyer and his client.
Ilu ma jiddendel ma xi linfa Batman.
From what I’ve been reading about this case it seems that somehow it is actually legal for non-EU citizens to work in Malta in that factory.
As far as I know, or thought I knew, there are only specific situation when such is allowed – that there is no one else can do the job or that the person is married to an EU citizen.
There being no one else that can do the job can have many interpretations, and it is understandable that is extended to managerial staff from the parent company but for sure it was never meant to include the situation where a factory cannot find people locally because the wage is too low and/or conditions unacceptable to an EU citizen.
The Chinese will be acquitted if prosecution attacks them on importation of non-EU citizens, allowed only if no Maltese or other EU citizen cannot or will not do the job.
Who in his/her right mind would work for eight months and receive €600, work 14 hour shifts, one free day a week and a generous break of one hour and 15 minutes per 14 hour shift?
They simply had to import Chinese and Vietnamese slaves. What’s wrong with that?
I hope that this case will not end up being another ‘closed file’ in the dead-end file cabinet of the Acting Commissioner.
http://www.independent.com.mt/articles/2014-11-12/local-news/Vietnamese-workers-say-they-are-owed-50-000-by-Leisure-Clothing-worked-14-hour-shifts-7-days-6736125538
http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20141112/local/three-leisure-clothing-employees-claim-50000-in-wages.543767
Someone’s making a fortune on the backs of these wretches.
The GWU should hang its head in shame.
PS I couldn’t access the site from Malta but using Hola and an Italian IP address, all is fine.
The questions to ask are. Who are the GWU officials who were aware of this situation between the years 1987 to 2014? Where are they now?
What is their opinion today? Why didn’t they speak up? Who were the GWU shop stewards between 1987 to 2014 within the company?
“Who are the GWU officials who were aware of this situation between the years 1987 to 2014? Where are they now?”
Playing holier than thou attending Sunday mass at Mosta and serving as full time voluntary with Caritas.
Michael Parnis and Roberto Christiano come to mind as being the Textile Section head at GWU.
Someone should ask the GWU officials whether they are making money out of this. Silence has a price.
Kieku fi zmien il-PN kienet tohrog fit-toroq tipprotesta kontra gvern li jhaddem skjavi. Qeghdin tant tajjeb ma tarawx li mhux ser jaqilbu c-cejca li riesqa lejhom.iz-zaqq il-mimlija qatt ma hennet ghaz-zaqq vojta.
A question to Carmelo Abela who is being paid by my tax money to answer my queries about the government:
“Does the government still believe that the media should keep silent about this slavery?”
Read THIS and be shocked:
Zambian miners shot by Chinese managers
A backlash against China’s powerful presence in the Zambian economy has been triggered by an incident in which 11 miners were shot by Chinese managers.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/africaandindianocean/zambia/8073443/Zambian-miners-shot-by-Chinese-managers.html
And this is how the Chinese then corrupt the local judiciary to declare innocent the two Chinese managers who shot the Zambian miners:
Two Chinese mine managers accused of shooting 13 coal miners in Zambia over a labour dispute have walked free after the judge dropped all charges, reporters in Livingstone said Tuesday.
http://www.france24.com/en/20110405-zambia-drops-charges-chinese-mine-managers-shooting-coal-miners-judge/
Welcome to Joseph-land
From information published it seems that the company also employs North Korean workers. North Korean workers are only ever sent abroad with the permission of the North Korean state which pockets most of their salaries.
Watch this documentary for some insight: http://www.vice.com/en_uk/video/north-korean-labor-camps-part-1
North Koreans work as ‘state-sponsored slaves’
There is an article written recently by the Guardian: http://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2014/nov/07/north-koreans-working-state-sponsored-slaves-qatar
Would the company lawyer accept to have his legal fees due, to be kept by the company in some box for safekeeping and doled out to him on the filling of some special form?
Hardly.
Ma tarax. Inkella kif ihaxxen zaqqu iktar milli hi.
The real scandal here is that the employer had a deal in place over a 30 year period with seven successive administrations both PL and PN to allow this employer to bring in slave labour to man its factory.
Even more disturbing is that labour union officials and the police seem to have been aware of the whole arrangement.
A judicial inquiry should be held into the whole affair to examine every aspect of this scandal and issue a report and recommendations for action to be taken.
How sweet an employee savings scheme. Tal-misthija.
Imma ghax kien qed ifaddalhomlom fil-kexxun.
Daphne where did the “Newer” and “Older” buttons go at the top of every article :( ?
Shocked in Malta? Rajt ma rajtx u smajt ma smajtx – there is such a strong culture of omerta that enables corruption and abuses.
Very true indeed. An abuser will continue to push things further unless confronted.
So it’s not slave labour after all. Not only are they being paid around 18 cents an hour, but they get free food and lodging, and close to 10 hours rest a day. That’s a lot of sleep, if you ask me. It’s a holiday.
Issa daqsekk Toni, povru haddiem meta hemm il-Labour.
The CEO will be recalled to China, put on a public trial, found guilty of gross mismanagement, stood up against a wall and shot. Matter resolved.
Ghax Dr Pio Valletta qed ippappiha tajjeb minn fuq dahar ic-Cinizi maffjuzi. Ghalhekk jitkellem bhal bahnan kif tkellem.
Is this a whiff of what is yet to come and the bullying tactics of the snake the government has invited to live in our sleeve?
‘Parliamentary Secretary for Planning Michael Falzon reported to the committee that the Chinese embassy had committed in writing that it would follow all the necessary laws and procedures.
The embassy said, however, that it could not present any plans since these would be drawn up once the land was purchased.’
http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20141111/local/chinese-embassy-site-decision-put-off-again.543627
They would have earned more if they had stayed in Vietnam. The average worker there earns 200 euros a month. Disgusting.
http://www.scmp.com/news/world/article/1617784/italy-fire-opens-seedy-side-chinese-migrant-labour
Disgusting. I do not know how those operating Leisure Clothing can sleep at night.
Many families are bringing Philippine girls here to work for them full time, sleeping in as carers. Their job description is housekeeping, looking after children, etc.
Theirs is a twenty-four hour job and they are paid peanuts. Is this not a precarious job? Are these jobs being blessed by the authorities?
This is in my opinion slavery.
Has the factory been closed? And who is the defending lawyer? Is he going to defend these atrocities? What if his children were working there under these conditions? Would he still defend the management?