Modern Times

This is not only sheer exploitation of employees, but it's also employee bullying

Following a casual chat that I have just had with an acquaintance of mine, and I’m wondering whether some people realise that this is 2009 not 1809.

The person I had a chat with works for a company owned by someone who’s high up in one of the government corporations. There is no doubt in my mind that his role in this particular corporation should make him very aware of employees’ rights and entitlements – especially when one considers which corporation he’s involved in.

Yet, his greed drives him to do the complete opposite of what’s obliged to do by law. My acquaintance’s story sounds like story penned by Dickens or Zola. Worse still, the company owned by Scrooge is subcontracted by government to supply services in a considerable number of institutions. Hence, this abuse is happening on government ground.

Ironically, the fact that this company employs – or exploits – a considerable number of people acts as a deterrent for the individual employees to stand up for their rights. When a small group of around 10 people joined a trade union, all the employees were told that if they consider joining a trade union, they’ll be fired on the spot. Unfortunately, this is not an unusual threat on The Rock. Many companies, even the bigger ones, make their aversion towards trade unions very clear. However, the ‘best’ is yet to come.

All operative staff are paid minimum wage, and they have no overtime entitlement. Worse still, any hours worked over 40 and above the hour week is paid at a part time rate which is . . . . lower than the regular hourly rate! This is trebly illegal as (1) overtime is not paid at a 1½ rate; (2) the part time rate is lower than minimum wage; and (3) the only reason why employees accept these conditions is that this income is undeclared – so they get money in hand. He only seems to honour his legal obligations on Sundays and public holidays as he pays at a double rate. However, if a public holiday falls on a Sunday, he doesn’t pay treble – as required by law.

Unfortunately, there’s more. Female members of staff don’t have any maternity leave benefits. Once they’re about to give birth, they’re out of the job. The owner claims that the government does not pay him for maternity leave so he can’t provide it to the employees! He makes it sound as though maternity leave is paid out by the state and not by the employer. Needless to say, this is a huge scandal. People are not only denied their employment rights, but they’re also stripped off of their dignity and treated like disposable machines. This guy shows no respect towards his people. He manages by instilling fear in his unskilled employees and he’s very quick to threaten people with firing them on the spot whenever they even try to think to question his merciless decisions.

The same argument that is applied to maternity leave is transferred to sick leave. Employees are only entitled to 3 days of sick leave. The rest is at the Social Services Department’s mercy (an allowance of €11 for those who live with their parents and €17 for those who have to cater for dependents – this information is available on the Ministry for Social Policy’s website although the benefit amounts are not updated accoring to this year’s budget). By law, he should pay his employees their full pay for a specific period (depending on the industry) minus the afore-mentioned amount that is paid out by Social Security. As if this is not enough, employees have to pay the company doctor themselves when he pays them a visit on their sick days.

Additionally, for the record, those industries that are not covered by a wage regulation order should provide a minimum of 10 days sick leave on full pay to their employees. As mentioned already, this cowboy only pays for 3 days of sick leave.

As we are currently kick-starting the debate on the extension of maternity leave (14 weeks is too poor), we still have employers who treat people like dirt. This ruthless draconian (mis)management of people is completely immoral and unacceptable in today’s society. How can this person sleep at night when he knows that he’s treating pregnant women miserably instead of providing them with all the support they need at such an important yet delicate moment in their life?

How does he have the gall to exploit people who need to take sick leave for more than three days? How can he pass on company expenses to his staff (who are struggling to make ends meet) by making them pay for the services rendered by the company doctor? It’s his choice to send a doctor to the employees’ house, hence he should foot the bill.

I honestly hope that this is an isolated case, but somehow I’ve got a nagging feeling that a number of people reading this story will be wondering why I’m getting so worked up about this . . . . as there is nothing unusual to them. This is not only sheer exploitation of employees, but it’s also bullying performed by someone who most probably thinks that he’s well connected and therefore may think of himself as being untouchable. Sadly, the fact is that his scare tactics and bullying have, so far, worked well for him as no one had the gall to bring him to justice.

I’ll (soon) be back . . .

Wake up . . . . . wake uuuuuuuuuuppppppp

This is just a small note to inform my esteemed readers that I am currently not in a position to upload any comments because of a computer malfunction.

No, this is not a leaf out of Alfred Sant’s book of gimmicks, but it’s the plain truth. I hope to get it fixed ASAP.

As the Terminator puts it: “I’ll be back”. Soon. Hopefully!

I’m allergic to idiocy

"There's no way we'll let the intruders in"

This REALLY is the zone where normal things don’t happen very often! The medical field has been experiencing a brain drain for the last 5 years. A huge number of doctors and nurses have sought other pastures – especially in the UK – because of better working conditions.

At the same time, the much-talked-about waiting lists at Mater Dei seem to be increasing by the minute. Yet, just because the MUMN is only interested to guard its territory, we are missing a good opportunity to offer new careers to some of our people in a field that may be part of the solution to this huge problem. The case I’m talking about concerns MUMN’s action to block a new course in the field of Medical Theatre Technicians. We don’t have any on the island, and this is an additional opportunity opportunity rather than a replacement of the nursing profession. As Diane Duric said in her interview with The Times, this role is complementary to nursing.

I cannot understand why some (or rather many) people in The Rock seem to be so defensive about their territory. This insecurity is not only stifling new opportunities for our labour market, but it is also having a negative impact on the services that are impacted by these irrational decisions.

Helen Booth was being very diplomatic when she told The Times that “from a global point of view, it is very short sighted (to stop the introduction of theatre technicians) because countries are finding it very difficult to recruit sufficient nurses to fulfil this role”.  Essentially, what she’s saying is that given the current shortage of human resources in this field coupled with the fact that the human resource is the only one available, it is sheer madness to miss out on this opportunity.

It just goes to show how poor thinking and a sense of insecurity from a few individuals has a negative impact on a huge number of people. The latter being hospital clients and those people who are being denied the opportunity to work as Theatre Technicians.

Grow up, will you?

Ssssssh! Don’t tell the locals . . .

We only do business with foreigners . . . sorry mate, you have to go to another country far away from this holy land

I happen to travel with the national airline quite frequently, and for these past few years I have been noticing that the back pages of the in-flight magazine are full of adverts promoting gentlemen’s clubs – our own modified and watered-down version of strip joints.

There’s obviously nothing wrong with that. What surprises me, though, is why are these clubs only advertised in this magazine. Is it because the target readership is the “foreign market”? Is there a common policy shared by magazine publishers not to accept ads from these clubs? I hope that the owners of these joints are not so naive to think that they should not target the local market because it won’t reap benefits.

I really wish that someone will explain why we don’t see these venues advertised in the local media – and by local media I mean newspapers and magazines targeting the Rocker market. I can speculate till the cows come home. At the end of the day, it will be interesting to know the REAL reason behind this odd behaviour.

Me from Klandestan

We come from new country: Klandestan

When I hear the term ‘klandestini’ used loosely, it gives me the impression that some people actually think that this noun describes people who come from a particular country or continent.

So if the natives are ‘Klandestini’, then the country must be called something on the lines of ’Klandestan’ or ‘Klandestinopoli’. This seems to be a huge country with millions of inhabitants as anyone who is a notch darker than the average Rocker is referred to as a ‘klandestin’.  Rockers also call fellow citizens who are dark in complexion “qisek Klandestin” instead of “qisek Afrikan” or “qisek Tunezin”, for example. I’m sure that you heard (by now) about the modern classic: a request for a “towst klandestin.” It seems that Africa has now been given a new name, and it’s no longer a continent. It’s just one hell of a huge country.

This word was originally used loosely by the media who originally started referring to boat people as ‘klandestini’ – which, per se, is a negative term. More positive words like ‘asylum seekers’ would have been more appropriate. Maybe this will serve as a lesson for the news script writers to be careful with the language they use, as this may have serious repercussions in the future.

Some people are now so obsessed with ‘klandestini, that they seem to have lost their sense of proper judgement – if they ever had any! Recently, a group of Bollywood actors shooting a love story on the Gozo channel

 was mistaken for a group of ‘klandestini’. I find this incident rather odd – especially after the huge success of Slumdog Millionaire . If the bigots who mistook Indians for Africans never left their shores, or never watched TV stations other than the crappy local stations, this movie should have given them the opportunity to realise that there’s a huge country somewhere in the East, and it’s called India. But then again, these kind of people are more likely to watch pseudo-actors screaming at each other on TVM, Net and One; and if they ever get to go to the cinema (or watch a movie on one of the Italian stations), it is more likely that they will enjoy some bloodthirsty fast and furious troglodytes chasing each other while exchanging some bullet rounds.

The Gozo incident shows how clouded our judgement is, and how we’re blinded by a paranoid paradigm. Just because a small group of dark people got off a boat and a helicopter was flying above them, some wise Gozitans (it seems that it’s quite a huge number, though) assumed that these were ‘klandestini’. As if ‘klandestini’ would be travelling on a yacht!

How Indians can be mistaken for Africans beats me, as their complexion is completely different. To me, this is a sheer example of insularity, and how cut off some people are with the rest of the world. We can now change the term ‘iswed’ with ‘klandestin’ in the expression: “jekk mhux abjad, iswed”.

The glorified punter

If gambling is the gangster's sport, then that explains why politicians and parish priests organise bingo and lotteries

It is evident to me that many people have nothing better to do in life than creating storms in teacups.  Apparently Caritas came under fierce criticism lately because one of its volunteers is a security consultant of one of the casinos on the island.

What’s wrong with that? It’s not an illegal casino that this guy is rendering a service to. That is precisely why the Lotteries & Gaming Authority was set up: to regularise gambling and to ensure that standards are kept and that operators uphold the relevant laws and regulations.

If this poor volunteer was directly involved in an operation that let minors in its gambling halls, or an operation that targeted problem gamblers to squeeze the few remaining cents they own out of them, then this hullabaloo would be perfectly justified. However, there seems to be nothing wrong with the casino that this person provides a service to; so what’s the issue? This is a clear manifestation of our skewed way of perceiving life.

According to these purists, casinos are a bad thing. However, the lotterija tal-prima organised regularly by shop owners, parish priests, and schools are perfectly acceptable. Last year I witnessed a 10-year-ol boy (he was roughly around that age) calling out bingo numbers on the church parvis in Rabat. Is this a good thing? Of course it’s not; but just because bingo is something we’re familiar with (it has been around for decades, and even the parish priest and political parties organise them), then it doesn’t seem wrong.

On the other hand, since only a relatively small crowd has the habit of frequenting casinos, then the general perception of those who don’t tends to be negative. People tend to demonise the unknown. While it is true that gambling addicts go to casinos, the same can be said about bingo halls and lotto booths.

I am aware that Caritas deals with people who have addiction issues, including gambling addiction, but I don’t see any conflict of interest in this case as the volunteer in question does not work for a casino operator who was found guilty of flouting the law. So what’s the issue here? Would these time wasters have reacted the same if another Caritas volunteer were a lotto receiver or the bingo organiser for the parish priest/political party club?

Better still, the volunteer around whom this issue was created doesn’t even work directly with the casino. He works with its security team – therefore he has nothing to do with the slot machines and roulette tables.

Think blue not red

BOS is all about creating an uncontested market space and make the competition irrelevant

Minister Tonio Fenech is right in pointing out the lack of creativity in the way we tend to do business. As in many other areas, most of our business activity is based on the herd instinct. As the saying goes: qisna n-naghag ta’ Bendu.

As soon as someone comes up with a formula that seems to work well, be sure that a number of people will do their best to have a big slice (possibly bigger) of the same cake. Ideally, the copycats would want to take over that particular market and drive everyone else in that sector out of business.

I’m sure that many of you remember the mushrooming of grocer shops in the 1980s followed by a pirate video store in every corner later in the decade. During the same period, cinemas were a complete disaster and only a handful of people visited the complex in Valletta. However, as soon as Eden Cinemas redefined the standards and revived the industry, a number of entrepreneurs followed suit. A number of complexes opened around the island, and many others were proposed but thankfully never saw the light of day.

In these last couple of years, wine bars seem to be the recent ‘trend to follow’.  By now, we must have reached the top charts of wine bars per capita when compared to other major cities.

This is all due to lack of innovation and imagination. During the cinema-opening frenzy, I used to say to myself that if I were an entrepreneur trying to compete with Eden Cinemas, the last thing I would invest in would be a cinema complex. Instead, I would target their market segment (youths and families with small children) and offer an alternative product like, for example, an amusement park.

About four years ago, I came across a book called Blue Ocean Strategy which, essentially, advocates this approach. In a small market like ours, we need to think blue not red as even just one outlet or service provider in a particular industry may be enough for such a limited market. We need to compare ourselves to a small county in a European nation. We cannot compare ourselves to London, Rome, Berlin, or Paris.

With our current way of doing things, many businessmen seem to think that they should have the biggest slice and starve all the rest. Instead of achieving this goal, we end up with a huge number of people biting more than they could chew, or eating crumbs and scraps of the cake. This would eventually not be enough to sustain themselves, and they end up closing shop or diversifying. I experienced this myself when I worked for a company that wanted to dominate the whole of Malta and literally put everyone out of business. Not only this did not happen, but the company went bust in a few months. The crash was so spectacular that to-date it’s a textbook case on bankruptcy. Yes, you’ve guessed. I’m talking about Priceclub.

Apart from greed and an “I want it all” attitude, lack of market analyses and market studies also seem to be the main reasons behind unpleasant results. If entrepreneurs do their own research before investing in a new business, we wouldn’t have all these restaurants, wine bars, clothes shops, household shops, cinemas, real estates, radio stations and other ventures.

Instead, we would have a more diversified and a richer market to choose from, with the end result being happier customers, better profits for the investors, and a much wider variety for the consumers to choose from.

How dare they?

Gonzi's PC desktop picture

Earlier this afternoon I happened to listen to Gonzi’s address during the extraordinary general council. As expected, this was essentially a long list of reasons why we should all vote for the Nationalist candidates in the upcoming EP elections.

At one point, he made a ‘revelation’ which I found shockingly disturbing. He said that during its last vote in the European Parliament, someone had the temerity to propose an amendment to condemn one of the pope’s recent statements. As if that’s not enough to scandalise the former president of the Catholic Action, a fellow Rocker went a step further.

One of the Labour MEPs actually voted in favour of this amendment while our hero PN MEPs voted against. In view of this, he warned, people should be careful who they vote into the EP as this is also an issue of values. While he stopped short of explaining which statement the EPs were asked to vote against, he also failed to mention which Labour MEP voted in favour. For the record, he also expressed his concerns about Labour’s strategy to attract the liberal vote. Instead of criticising Labour for the huge gap between its progressive claims and its redneck behaviour, he opted to fly the conservative flag.

This kind of behaviour is yet another proof to me that we’re in a sorry state of affairs, and that our Prime Minister’s loyalty lies with the Vatican and not the EU.  It seems that Gonzi was not the only member for the EPP-ED to be offended by the amendment. Their press release on 5 May refers to the Liberals’ proposal to condemn the pope’s claims about condoms as a preventive measure against AIDS as being “totally unacceptable”. This is a good enough reason not to vote for PN candidates.

Ironically, Gonzi himself was reported to disagree with the pope’s claims when he discussed the issue with the Sewedish Foreign Trade Minister, Ewa Björling. So I don’t know what this fuss is all about.

The PN seems to be unaware that the increasing number of liberals on this island tend to hail from Nationalist families, and his utter disgust at liberalism is diametrically opposed to the image of inclusion that he’s been trying to portray for these last two years.

The loop is in motion

What If We stop Eurobitchin'?

As I browse through the local news portals in the early hours of the morning, I am getting the first taste of the umpteenth déjà vu. The first comments are being posted on The Times website and unsurprisingly, they’re recycled comments from the past. The loop I mentioned last Friday is already in motion. As the Italians aptly put it: “e` un film gia` visto”.

From what I heard, it seems that Chiara can take any form of criticism – except the slightest comment about her figure. So if anyone wants to pass any comments about Chiara, please don’t dare mention her figure (it reminds me of Basil Fawlty’s “don’t mention the war” warnings). Any other comment is welcome.

Let the bitching begin……………….

Living happily ever after

Our politicains' approach on family breakdowns

A round of applause for the Today Public Policy Institute for approaching the divorce issue in a very pragmatic manner.

I haven’t seen the report myself, but according to the news report in The Times, it does not only make a case for the introduction of divorce legislation, but it also suggests that this will be based on the Irish model. Incidentally, this means that it will be harder to get a divorce then to get annulment today. Therefore anyone who is concerned about that divorce “opening the floodgates” can rest assured that there are good safeguards to prevent this from happening.

The think tank’s proposal coincides with my suggestion last Wednesday’s where I wrote that “…… instead of discussing whether or not to introduce divorce, it would be wiser to discuss the grounds upon which divorce should be granted……”

The changes that our society has gone through in these last 20 years brought about certain realities that cannot keep on being ignored. In fact, this report also revealed that failed marriages increased by a staggering 160% between 1995 and 2005.There are a number of reasons why marriages fail, and each and every case has its own specifics. However the fact of the matter is that marital breakdowns are on the rise, and the effects of this need to be addressed sooner rather than later. As we’ve seen last Thursday, one of the effects of the absence of divorce is an increasing number of children born outside wedlock. These children are sometimes referred to as “illegitimate”.

At the moment, we have new forms of families and this is creating total chaos in our social fabric. This is a situation that needs to be tackled ASAP, and any politician who insults us with the usual rhetoric about ensuring that marriages last forever should be sent to a reality check.

The objective of divorce is not to fix broken marriages. Divorce is the effect of a broken marriage so anyone who links the divorce issue with the State’s obligation to encourage long lasting marriages is completely and utterly misguided. One good thing about divorce, and which is incidentally always omitted by the marriage-for-life parade, is that it could lead to a new marriage in the future. Thanks to divorce, those who may have been unlucky or who may have made the wrong decision at an earlier stage in life will have a second chance. This fixation with forcing people who hate each other’s guts to live together – especially if they have kids – is completely wrong.

If a couple-that-is-no-more has kids, they should leave each other for the sake of the kids as this would spare them of countless shenanigans, insults and other kinds of abuse. Needless to say, one happy parent is better than two angry ones.  And what kind of message do parents who sleep in separate rooms – not separate beds, but separate rooms – give to their children?

These examples are just the tip of the iceberg. There are countless other anecdotes that ‘family members’ have to face on a daily basis. Like any other relationship, when a marriage is over and beyond reconciliation, then the best thing to do is shake hands and agree to go separate ways.

We have been told so many times that the time is not ripe for divorce legislation to be considered. When is it going to be the right time? Is it when the official marital breakdown rate hits 50%?