GWU asks for compensation after fuel price increase

The General Workers Union is requesting compensation for workers after the price of fuel rose between three to five cents per litre as from yesterday.

The union said that this increase, as well as a rise in the price of essential items, was having a negative effect on the public’s spending power.

GWU secretary general Josef Bugeja, in a statement, said that the increases meant that what workers had gained in collective agreements would be lost.

He said that cost of living adjustments should be given twice a year, not once.

The increase in the price of fuel is the third over the last 18 months, the Nationalist Party also said, adding that the people were being forced to carry the financial weight of the government’s ‘bad decisions’.

PN deputy leader David Agius said that when the international price of oil in 2011 was $103.01 a barrel, the price of diesel in Malta was €1.28 per litre. The price of oil was now $65.31, and yet Maltese consumers were still paying the same price, he said.

The increase in the price of fuel would add pressure on workers and families who were also having to endure traffic jams, the PN said.

“Families are now also paying higher prices for milk products, which is another blow to their quality of life, especially those in the low wage income bracket. The government boasts of introducing no taxes in the budget, but increase in prices are coming later.”

“The government has lost all sense of social justice,” the PN said.

In reply, the Labour Party said that if the government had to follow the PN’s suggestions, the price of fuel would have increase a long time ago and would even be higher.

The price of fuel is still below the European average, and had been kept stable for a year, it said.

The price is now 12 cents per litre lower (diesel) and 10 cents lower (petrol) than it was in 2013, the PL said.

When the PN was in government, the price of petrol had increased by 36 per cent when it Europe it had gone up by 21 per cent, and that of fuel went up by 35 per cent in Malta when it Europe it had risen by 17 per cent, the PL said.