15 - 21March 2001

Mending fences and revising attitudes

Joe Delia, President of Malta Employers’ Association, explains to Blanche Gatt how changing circumstances have led to a revision of old attitudes

General perception of the relationship between employers and workers tends to borrow heavily from the archetypal image of conflict between two diametrically opposed standpoints; fuelled by media reports of collision situations that arise in times of industrial dispute, the man in the street sees the Employers’ Association as the natural enemy of the labour movements.
And, in its original sense, they would not be far wrong. This was an organisation set up to counteract the impetus of burgeoning workers’ movements and unions in the mid-60s, and the first two decades of its existence were marked by the strife and turmoil of seemingly un-reconcilable ideological and political struggles.
But more recently, though with some notable exceptions, the scenario has evolved and altered. For almost a decade now, the winds of change have been wafting hints of an impending era of conciliation. Do these signal a long overdue maturity in the outlook of the social partners whose actions determine our country’s economic progress?
To learn a bit more about this, I went to speak to the newly elected President of the Employers’ Association, Joe Delia. As the Director for Human Resources of the Gasan Group of Companies, with a long history of involvement with the Malta Employers’ Association since before he joined Gasan 19 years ago, he has a broad and pragmatic view of employer/worker relations.
His experiences in his HR capacities of handling industrial dispute, plus his years of accumulated expertise in balancing employer/employee relations fits in well with the prevalent mood.
“An evolution is beginning,” he said, “through which all the social partners realise they share a responsibility towards the National Interest. Attitudes and circumstances have changed, and I believe it is now being recognised that both employers and workers have a common objective.
“This common objective is the generation of wealth, and it can only be realised by the private sector working hand in hand with the workers to co-generate this wealth. I believe it is essential that we become a social partnership striving to achieve this ultimate objective – if as partners we work jointly without hidden agendas then we can start to travel in the same direction and significantly contribute to the national interest.”
Just a few years ago voicing thoughts like these would have branded their speaker renegade or maverick – but Joe was quick to point out that though the narrow definition of the Employers’ Association, and original raison d’etre, was strictly to represent its members in matters pertaining to industrial dispute, the wider definition implies a strong role in social policy making. The participation of the association in the Malta Council for Economic development along with the unions and the government is one arena within which the association can influence economic developments; Joe Delia has proposed other ways in which the employers can contribute towards economic growth within a context of social justice.
“I have proposed three main priorities for this year,” he explained. “These are competitiveness, social cohesion and education, all of which we perceive to be of national interest, as well as of primary interest to the unions. We propose to increase competitiveness by promoting the tools of flexibility; basically a company cannot remain competitive unless it manages to attract more labour.
“Here in Malta that means attracting a higher participation of women. To do that working hours and conditions have to be attractive enough for the mother to be able to balance work with family. Of course, all this demands a change in culture, and for the association to exert influence over whether this happens or not, we have to make our members more sensitive about the need for cultural change.
“This leads naturally on to the second issue of social cohesion. I see so much potential in the council members and scope for the association in its role in the social economy. The perspective in the past was to provide employers with a counterbalance to the unions – I think we are living in a very different environment today, and the measurement of the association’s success ought to be the degree of the contribution it gives to social partnership, i.e. the kind of thing we did on the MCED. But also we are enjoying an economic climate in which we are able to build a much more constructive role with the unions.
“Today the association has excellent relationships with the unions and if we work together for the common objective of generating wealth, we will have a golden opportunity to truly work towards the national good. The very nature of the association is essentially that of striving for a stable industrial relations environment. And, while there are certain matters that the association might deem unassailable, we are now committed to the continuous pursuit of equilibrium between its members’ rights, its members’ interests and the national interest.”
Unassailable positions held by the Employers’ Association include, for example, the determination that every wage increase must be supported by productivity.
“This is unassailable because it is a fact of economics that you cannot increase wages without increased productivity. So the taxation on fringe benefits is unavoidably inflationary because eventually enough pressure will be put upon the employer that he will end up paying for it. If an employee today gets an increase of X number of pounds, in due course he will have to be given X plus to cover the losses incurred through fringe benefits taxation. So for the same input the employer has to pay more, although it is not compensated by gains in productivity. That is why our position is not against the taxation itself, but against the sudden implementation of it, with no prior consultation.”
Another issue that taxes employers in another sense centres round sick leave. A report looking at absenteeism due to illness throughout the public and private sectors between 1997 and 1999 was recently finalised by the Malta Employers’ Association.
The report claims that sick-leave related absences through these years maintained an upward trend, with private sector employees taking an average of 7.14 working days in 1999 and public sector workers taking an average of 10.17 days in the same year. “This was a benchmarking exercise which we are going to follow up with more intensive studies,” elaborated Joe.
“As it is, no conclusions can be reached based on this report – it was the first step in a long-term exercise to gain a comprehensive scientific view of the situation. However, for the first time we have a benchmark against which to measure rates of absenteeism due to illness in the country. Malingering is not really an issue in the private sector, though it remains to be seen from further in-depth studies whether there exist specific problems in specific industries or individual companies that should be addressed.”
The third issue Mr Delia proposed as a priority for the Malta Employers’ Association focuses on education, or training.
“We have to sensitise our members to take their training obligations more seriously. Of course, there already are members of our association who offer their employees on-the-job training and participation in apprenticeship schemes, but the majority need to give this area a lot more attention – they must appreciate that unless they keep up with advancing technology they may find they end up no longer viable as businesses.”
Demand-driven training, stimulated by business needs, is commonly offered to employees in Europe and even in a few isolated large companies here in Malta. However, the culture of investing in education for employees is still alien to most local employers.
“No exercise that I know of has been carried out to validate the claim that investing in training for staff will result in increased productivity, but there are visible signs of this in the way that companies with a culture of training develop and grow. Essentially, it is important to view the country as one economy, and by increasing or enhancing the skills of our collective workforce, not only do the individual companies offering training benefit, but the whole of our economy benefits too.”
Ultimately, accord and balance between the social partners can only lead to improved performance on all fronts. Nevertheless, it remains to be seen whether the antagonism of decades, or the unassailable issues both sides will undoubtedly reserve, will prove flexible enough for good intentions to be converted into action rather than simply voiced. Joe Delia’s commitment to finding a medium for this metamorphosis may only be a first step, but it is certainly a positive one.