8 - 14 June 2000

Drydocks CEO sacked following cases of insubordination

by Franco Aloisio

Barry Johnson, who until last Tuesday occupied the post of CEO at Malta Drydocks, was sacked following a number of cases of insubordination, sources close to the Drydock's Council said yesterday.

Mr Johnson is reported to have not followed a number of orders coming from the Malta Drydocks Council. One such order was to reduce the number of overtime given to dockyard workers. In the last months, the council had planned to reduce costs and increase productivity by cutting down on the number of hours worked by dockyard workers on overtime.

However Mr Johnson did not reduce overtime, and production costs continued increasing. These added costs were partly responsible for the disappointing financial results for the first five months of this year. In fact, the losses during this period increased by Lm0.5m, despite the turnover increasing by Lm1m.

The sources said there were other policies spelt out by the council which were not being followed by the former CEO, but did not specify what these policies were.

Mr Johnson was respected by the workers and had very good relations with the General Workers' Union. In an interview with The Malta Independent on Sunday published in November 1999, the secretary of the GWU Dockyard Section Tony Coleiro spoke about Mr Johnson: "The drydocks has to reform itself and be competitive. I admire a lot the drydocks chief executive Barry Johnson. He has introduced several new work practices, such as that of accepting all kinds of workloads, irrespective of the limitations of the Malta Drydocks."

Mr Johnson was recruited as CEO of the Malta Drydocks in October 1998 following the publication of the Appledore report, which had suggested that the 'yard should be separated in two sections - the ship repair section and the enterprises section.

The other CEO, who heads the Drydocks Enterprises Section, Peter Moore, is expected to remain in his post. Meanwhile, an international recruitment call for a new CEO of the Drydocks Shiprepair Section and new Human Resources Manager has been issued.

The chairman of Malta Drydocks John Cassar White will be leaving Malta to Libya tomorrow in search of new work contracts. He will be holding talks with prospective Libyan clients.