Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1065920
7 NEWS maltatoday | SUNDAY • 23 DECEMBER 2018 Enjoy safer roads this Christmas, remember to drink responsibly! Wishing you all the best for this festive season. follow ian borg ian@ianborg.eu #GettingThingsDone PAUL COCKS WORKERS and managers at Trans- port Malta are up in arms after dis- covering that a number of their col- leagues, in sections represented by a different union, were granted thou- sands of euros in allowances and ben- efits under an unapproved collective agreement, MaltaToday has learned. Sources within the authority said the collective agreement with the UHM Voice of the Workers was signed by former CEO James Piscopo, a couple of months before being appointed to head the Lands Authority. But MaltaToday is informed that the agreement had been turned down by the Industrial Relations Unit within the Office of the Prime Minister and that it did not have the backing of the Finance Ministry – both prerequisites for any collective agreements. The collective agreement, first pre- sented by the UHM in an 8 December 2017 meeting with Piscopo, grants a number of non-overtime grades to be paid thousands of euros in allowances as well as 100 litres of fuel per month. The said allowances are applicable only to around 200 employees, pri- marily architects and road engineers, who have since been moved to fall un- der Infrastructure Malta but continue to enjoy the benefits of the collective agreement sealed with Piscopo. In addition, these employees are also being paid responsibility allowances, a 10% performance bonus, and on-call, shift and disturbance allowances. Other employees within the same category and senior management are denied all or most of these allowanc- es and are in dispute with Transport Malta due to the discrimination as a result of not benefiting from these al- lowances as their colleagues do. Prior to this agreement the allow- ances were paid according to the du- ties and requirements as established by Transport Malta. Sources told this newspaper that the UHM, and the General Workers' Un- ion – which represents employees in the merchant shipping section and the tower signal station (turretta) – had been negotiating separate agreements for their members throughout 2017. The GWU concluded its negotia- tions first, signing a new collective agreement agreed upon by all parties. The UHM stretched out its nego- tiations before presenting a proposed agreement on 8 December 2017. That agreement did not find the approval of the IRU or the finance ministry. The same sources said that a number of senior architects put a lot of pres- sure on Piscopo to conclude the nego- tiations and accept the proposed agree- ment. Weeks before he stepped down as CEO of Transport Malta in June this year, Piscopo signed the collec- tive agreement with the UHM for the selected employees, despite not having the IRU's and ministry's approval. A number of the affected employees, mainly architects and road engineers, have since been reassigned to Infra- structure Malta but continue to enjoy the benefits granted under the agree- ment. Attempts to contact the UHM sec- tion representative proved unsuccess- ful. Charlie Galea, the GWU's secretary for the professional, finances and ser- vices sector, confirmed the existence of the discriminatory agreement and said that such discrimination was un- acceptable. "We should never accept any agree- ment or arrangement that discrimi- nates between workers and that places some workers at an advantage over others," he said. pcocks@mediatoday.com.mt 'Discriminatory' union deal signed by former transport CEO despite ministry's refusal The collective agreement with the UHM Voice of the Workers was signed by former Transport Malta CEO James Piscopo, a couple of months before being appointed to head the Lands Authority. But the agreement had been turned down by the Industrial Relations Unit within the Office of the Prime Minister and it did not have the backing of the Finance Ministry – both prerequisites for any collective agreements