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Union acting like Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, says Opposition
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The TGWU/UNITE has recently been unfairly critical of the Opposition for reasons better known to themselves.
They seem to be acting like Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, very friendly with Opposition Members when they bump into them with suggestions of reviving the monthly meetings they used to hold, but then expressing very hostile views about the Opposition in public which are totally unjustifiable and unfounded, says the Opposition in a statement.
The union said in a press release yesterday: “Politics is unforgiving, and venturing into its murky waters is not easy for anyone and this includes the union”.
The Opposition picks on this to say that "It seems to us that the ones playing a political game are the union, perhaps this being the result of the “murky” waters the union seem to be swimming in."
SISARELLO CRITICISED
The Opposition says it continues to raise politically a huge amount of union related issues "because we feel it is our duty and it is right and proper that we should, and not because the union asks us to, this is why it was totally unjustified of District Officer, Charlie Sisarello, to have recently said that we had raised no issues relevant to working people during the Budget Debate, particularly after the Opposition condemned the revenue raising measures in the Budget for the detrimental effect this will have on working people, amongst other points made."
The Opposition statement adds: So many union related issues were raised during the Budget Debate that it led the Chief Minister to accuse the Opposition of being the mouthpiece of the unions, something the Opposition took as a compliment given the long historic ties the GSLP has with the Trade Union Movement. We shall certainly continue to defend the same principles inside and outside Parliament whatever the District Officer of the union might say about us in public.
The statement adds: The union seems to have got hot under the collar recently because some journalists came to Gibraltar and sought the views of a cross-section of the population over the immigrant workers in Gibraltar [Moroccan Workers] in the context of the immigration problem in the whole of Europe. They appear to be unhappy over how that visit concluded and want to blame the Opposition for this, for no good or substantiated reason.
It seems to the Opposition that because the Government is not listening to what the union has to say over the plight of Moroccan Workers in Gibraltar, the union prefer to use the Opposition as a punch bag for the sole purpose, one presumes, of trying to appease the Government who are the ones responsible for the problem today and to whom the Union has asked recognition as being the organisation that represents the interests of Moroccans in Gibraltar. The Government have still to reply to this request. How the inactivity of the GSD Government over the past 13 years can be the responsibility of the Opposition is an enigma, particularly since none of this has been reflected by the union in the meetings held with Opposition members over this matter, they said.
JIBE
The jibe about how the Opposition acted over the Private Members Bill over the equalisation of the age of consent, which has absolutely nothing to do with the issue related to Moroccan workers, "we can only presume is driven by a desire by Michael Netto to defend his brother, the Minister, who gave a very long-winded philosophical speech which was rubbished and ravaged by none other than Peter Caruana, not by us. Our position has been made clear on several occasions, we believe that this matter of complying with Gibraltar’s international obligations is a matter for the Government as a whole and not for one member of Parliament, and we also know that there is a divergence of views over what the age of consent should be and we feel there should be a debate about it before moving towards equalisation. As can be seen by the number of letters being written to the media on the subject, there is more than one view on this issue and we have therefore been proved to have done the correct thing, the debate we foresaw is already taking place. Everyone knows that we support the equalisation of the age of consent, those Members of Parliament that do not, all belong to the party Jaime Netto belongs to which is the GSD," said the Opposition.
"Finally, what we would like the leadership of the union to understand is that although we defend trade union principles and values, we cannot continue to condone their duplicity and their false and unjustified statements against the Opposition. If the problem they have is that they are afraid to put the ball in Caruana’s court, where it belongs, then they should not pretend to be leading the fight on behalf of Moroccan workers, but to try to appear even-handed politically by unjustifiably attacking the Opposition in order to be critical of the Government too, seems to us to be a very cowardly and duplicious position to take," said the statement.
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