Finance Minister Clyde Caruana yesterday threatened Air Malta employees with shutting down the airline if they didn’t accept the new terms being offered as the government is attempting to withdraw the agreement signed before the general elections in March.

The Shift is informed that during an eleventh-hour meeting yesterday with representatives of the General Workers Union, representing the majority of workers to be made redundant, Caruana made it clear that the government will not respect the agreement.

Close to 600 Air Malta employees who signed up for the Voluntary Transfer Employment Scheme (VETS) were promised a government job for life matching their current financial packages.

The Shift has revealed that the government is now insisting on a golden handshake instead, offering a golden handshake ranging from €40,000 and €145,000 to different employees to leave their jobs.

Air Malta letter guaranteeing employees government jobs

The minister argued that, despite signed agreements, the take-home pay of most of Air Malta does not fit within the government salary structure. Shifting them to the public payroll would create discrimination since public sector employees at the same level are paid less.

This has raised questions on why the government had not considered this before entering into an agreement with close to 600 employees, leading to suspicions that it was nothing more than a vote-buying exercise.

Several employees who spoke to The Shift vowed they would not be forced to accept redundancy and will not accept a golden handshake instead of the guaranteed job they were offered, in writing, before the general elections.

A senior employee told The Shift: “We did not sign an agreement with a child, but with a senior government minister who laid down his terms in writing. That is why we accepted and even voted for his government to remain in office a few weeks later. Now, if he has second thoughts, it’s his problem. He must stick to his agreement and solve his own problems.”

Through the scheme, the government committed to transferring all the employees who signed up by 11 August.

The employees are warning the GWU not to betray them by reaching some agreement with the government behind their backs.

“This is also the GWU’s fault. Despite previous agreements, it did not insist on their implementation. Instead, some officials were only interested in ensuring their relatives and friends were well taken care of,” another employee said.

A few months ago, Finance Minister Clyde Caruana promised Air Malta employees government jobs.

So far, only a handful of Air Malta employees who applied for the scheme have been given a government job, with the rest now being told that they must forget the original agreement.

One of the lucky few is former PN propagandist turned Labour Karl Stagno Navarra, who, despite having only a three-year definite contract, was given a job at the Occupational Health and Safety Authority.

Other well-connected employees were also transferred to Transport Malta, led by Charles Pace, a former Air Malta pilot who was paid a half a million euro in a golden handshake (from a previous scheme) before being given a new government job.

During a heated meeting held with unions and employees a few weeks ago, Air Malta Chairman David Curmi described the VETS agreement as just “a piece of paper” (biċċa karta), according to some present at the meeting.

A few days after, Air Malta told the same employees that they had to remain on the airline’s books until the end of September.

Since then, plans have changed again, with the government reneging on its agreement.

In the meantime, Air Malta has kept under wraps an agreement it has already entered into with an Italian company to set up a new ground handling operation. Instead of keeping its employees, a new Air Malta company will ‘import’ all the necessary human resources from other countries where workers accept lower wages.