Joe Galea, Air Malta CEO, has said that the airline plans to separate off its ground services, then buy the service from a new government company. All staff would then be transferred onto the books of the new company and no longer be considered as Air Malta personnel. A spokesman for the General Workers’ Union said yesterday that the decision was still “a proposal”, which the GWU had not yet accepted.
Response from the affected workers is not warm. A petition has reportedly been generated by handling staff asking the Prime Minister and the GWU not to proceed with the deal, and demanding alternative action. One employee who has served 20 years with Air Malta said to the Times of Malta: “We have been put in a position where we don’t have an option but to do what the company and the GWU have decided behind our backs. This is dictatorship.”
Another employee added: “We want to at least be offered the possibility of being employed directly with the government as happened with Enemalta workers. We don’t want to be transferred to a handling company as this limits our options. What happens if the government decides to sell the handling company then?”
The GWU’s General Secretary, Josef Bugeja, denied that the Union had agreed to the move. “Let me stress that we did not sign or agreed to anything. If this proposal is to be accepted, we will first have to go to the workers involved and have a vote on it,” he asserted.
On Monday, the GWU issued a statement together with with the government saying an agreement had been reached on the future of GWU members at Air Malta; however, Bugeja stressed that the only agreement to date was that none of its members would be losing their job and that salaries would remain the same. He commented: “We have not signed anything and this is only an understanding subject to any future agreement which the government may reach with Alitalia. It will only be at that stage that we will negotiate the details and sign any agreement.”
Some of the affected workers have accused the government of “divide and rule tactics”, with one airline captain claiming that the government was trying to reach separate agreements with pilots, cabin crew, engineers and ground staff, while giving the impression that everyone was in agreement. “The reality is that no section knows what the other section is agreeing to and it seems that all these discussions are just thin air,” an engineer reportedly said.
The Sunday Times of Malta reported that, according to the business plan submitted by Alitalia, Air Malta’s operations would be rerouted southbound, opening new routes to North Africa. Meanwhile, a third of its European routes would be cut from the schedule. The business model reportedly also says that Alitalia will not be making any new capital injection into the company for its 49% share.
It has allegedly been proposed that the government shoulders all of Air Malta’s liabilities, which exceed €60m.
