Workers and the role of unions

The day dedicated to the workers has come and gone but, once again, the “subject” of the 1 May holiday was not given the importance that it deserved, at least in Malta.

Instead, we had the two major political parties using the day to launch their respective campaigns leading to the 8 June elections – to elect Malta’s six representatives at the European Parliament and the 68 local councils.

The workers, and their everyday plights, were more or less ignored as politicians focused on what interests them most, which is to win votes via their usual diatribe about “how good we are” and “how bad the others are”.

There was no major reference to the difficulties that more and more workers are facing every day. They are not the same issues that workers faced when the feast dedicated to them was created more than 100 years ago. But, nonetheless, they are issues that need to be addressed.

Trade unions believe they have done their utmost and contend that they will continue to do their best to defend their members. But when unions become more like political parties, or worse, take on a partisan tinge, they are doing a disservice to them.

This is because unions are supposed to be there to safeguard the interests of the workers they represent, those who pay an annual fee to see union leaders serving as a shield to protect their rights and, most of all, to see that their conditions of work – and this does not only include the salary – improve.

But when unions remain tacit in the wake of difficulties that workers are facing on a daily basis, they become accomplices in the trampling of the workers they are duly and duty bound to protect. When this happens, the workers’ voice weakens and it makes the people, who employ them, including the government which has a sizeable chunk of the workforce on its books, more powerful. When the government of the day knows it has the support of the largest union, it feels more in control and can take decisions which would be more difficult to take when unions are against.

We saw it happening, in Malta, in recent times. The Labour government closed Air Malta without batting an eyelid, in full cognizance of the fact that there would not have been any industrial trouble. It would have been a different story if Air Malta had been declared bankrupt under a Nationalist government. The older generations will remember how the General Workers Union had acted when the PN was in power and wanted to change things at the national carrier.

Unions have an important role to play in any given country. But they should always keep in mind that they are there to defend their members, the workers, and not to keep the government happy.