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A campaign against precarious work has been stepped up after directors of a clothing firm in Malta were accused in court of paying a woman €10 for 14 hours of work. The case, which had not concluded at the time of writing, comes after press reports in November that a security firm was paying foreign workers €3.60 per hour.
Labour laws in Malta have been governed, since 1952, by the Conditions of Employment and Regulations Act. In 2002, in order to align Maltese labour law with EU standard employment practices, this act was amalgamated with the 1976 Industrial Relations Act. However, precarious work is not covered by these laws and has been known to exist in Malta. Anecdotal evidence has traditionally held that employees involved in precarious work are likely to be found in the construction industry, or are cleaners, care workers and security personnel. These types of work are very often outsourced by government and large corporations to cut costs, and the workers involved feel peripheral and expendable.
However, evidence about precarious work has been hard to gather because many affected employees feel too vulnerable to report their conditions. In November 2014, the newspaper MaltaToday revealed that a top security firm's non-Maltese employees were being paid €3.60 an hour and forced to work more than 60 hours a week. It also reported cases of workers, most of them foreigners, working 80 hours a week with no payment for overtime work.
However, the court case involving a clothing firm that began in February 2015 has shocked many observers because the manufacturing sector, consisting mainly of foreign-owned, export-oriented firms, generally has a highly unionised work force covered by a collective agreement that ensures working conditions are above the legal minimum.
Evidence given against the managing director and the market director of this clothing firm alleged that a Vietnamese woman was paid €10 for 14 hours work, and €1.70 for five hours of overtime. The court heard that her contract had stated her salary would be €600 per month, and that her conditions of work would comply with the Maltese labour law. Other workers at the firm told the court that they had received similar treatment to this woman. A lawyer for the firm told magistrates that the firm was willing to pay its workers their outstanding wages.
Trade unions and charities such as Caritas Malta and Jesuit Refugees Services Malta have been campaigning for four years against precarious work. The General Workers Union (GWU) commissioned a study on the issue based on interviews with unions and employers. It revealed that about 12% of Maltese employees are in precarious employment. The GWU has adopted a policy of ‘naming and shaming’ firms when they find precarious work. In a press conference on 19 January 2015, GWU Secretary-General Tony Zarb called for the government to stop giving contracts to employers found guilty of using precarious conditions. The union also praised the announcement by Finance Minister Edward Scicluna, in the November 2014 budget speech, that workers engaged in government contracts will have to be paid the same as government employees who perform the same tasks. This measure was set to apply to contracts granted from January 2015.
The GWU Secretary General is insisting that the Work Regulations Orders set by the Wages Council, which govern cleaners, security guards and care workers, should also be amended so that pay and conditions of work are in line with workers on government contracts. Josef Vella, Secretary General of the Union Haddiema Maghqudin (UHM), said that all companies must uphold legal employment conditions whether their workers are employed directly by them or indirectly as employees of their subcontractors. He suggested that employers should be obliged to submit their contracts to a national database, accessible online, to ensure that minimum standards are met.
In 2013 the government introduced rules to prevent precarious employment that require all government contractors to state their workers’ minimum pay in their tenders, and to give all employees a pay slip detailing wages, hours worked and any overtime work. The Malta Employers Association (MEA) also issued a service charter for companies operating in the security, cleaning and care working sectors which is to be overseen and enforced by a regulatory body. It states that employers have to conform to legislation that governs pro rata payments to part-time workers, refrain from using supposedly self-employed workers in such a way that their self-employed status becomes bogus, pay overtime rates for work in excess of 40 hours a week and not try to discourage workers from joining a trade union.
The government has reacted to demands from unions and charities by bringing in legislation to combat precarious work. Strict enforcement of this and the closing of various loopholes could be the most effective answer to this problem. However, whether this will solve the issue is, of course, still a moot point.