Worker’s Day reflections: Nobody should have to work two jobs to make ends meet
Yesterday – 1 May – happened to be International Workers’ Day, a day celebrated in over 80 countries globally in recognition of all workers and of how they are the backbone of every society.
It’s a day which has over the years carried different meanings and reflections, depending on the time at hand. This year, of course, is no different.
In comments made to The Malta Independent on Sunday, the General Workers’ Union’s Josef Bugeja said that Workers’ Day is still relevant today, not only as a remembrance of how workers managed to get their rights, but also as a day of reflection to envision where they are headed and how they should advance.
There are a number of matters which, no doubt, will be at the forefront of how life for workers changes in the coming months and even years, as things such as the Right to Disconnect are discussed at a European level.
We will see other debates, particularly locally, over the coming years, especially when it comes to a PL general election proposal for trade union membership to be made mandatory – a proposal which has been widely criticised by employers.
However, at a core level, particularly in the local context, we must question whether enough is being done in order to help workers live their lives as well as possible.
Something which is important to remember but which is sometimes forgotten is that people are not inherently born to work, and their life should not revolve around their work.
Life is a lot more than work: work is, in truth, simply a means to an end – a means by which people earn money in order to maintain themselves and their families and live the lives they truly want to live.
It is not something which needs glorifying. Today’s society makes a habit of glorifying working ridiculously long hours, with some wearing it as some sort of badge of achievement or pride.
Such things do come from the government as well. Much has been done, no doubt, in order to help workers – but at the same time, the government has also introduced measures to incentivise people to work more and for longer hours, such as by incentivising overtime through lower tax rates.
This all comes at a time when more and more workers are feeling the squeeze of cost of living increases in day to day items, and at a time where Malta’s property market remains inflated – a significant hurdle for anyone in entrylevel work or lower income work who wishes to purchase or even rent a roof over their heads.
In truth, what the government (and this is not a matter exclusively faced by the Maltese government, it should be said) needs to be doing is to truly work on improving workers’ conditions – starting from their salaries.
Malta’s minimum wage is currently set at just over €9,500 per year: a paltry €792.30 per month. Anyone working such a job will need either a second job or a boatload of overtime hours in order to make ends meet.
The PL government has sometimes veered too much to the side of being pro-business over the past decade or so , and forgotten that it is a socialist party which should, in theory, be pro-worker.
It’s not that these two principles cannot co-exist: they can, but at times the balance between them has been skewed away from the worker and more in favour of the CEO or business owner, leading to some suggestions that the PL of today is built more on champagne socialism rather than anything else.
Being pro-worker is important, now more than ever. There needs to be progress on improving working conditions for everyone; both financially and otherwise.
Nobody should have to work two jobs or an extra 20 or 30 hours of overtime per week in order to make ends meet.