Government to legalise abusive use of GWU’s Valletta HQ

The government has presented a parliamentary resolution to legalise the commercial use of parts of the General Workers Union’s (GWU) headquarters in Valletta, which were rented out to other companies in breach of the original public concession.

The development occurs just a few months after the court annulled two rental agreements, entered illegally by the GWU in 2014, with a government company, ARMS Ltd, and Kasco Foods, owned by the disgraced former OPM boss Keith Schembri, making tens of thousands in illegal profit from public land.

Kasco later transferred its rental agreement to Sciacca Grill’s new owners, who took over the restaurant from Schembri.

In a draft resolution, expected to be approved by Parliament’s National Audit Accounts Committee, Lands Minister Stefan Zrinzo Azzopardi proposed that the original conditions in a 1957 public concession, disallowing the GWU to lease out any part of its building for commercial purposes be removed for almost half of its massive building in Valletta’s South Street.

According to the lands minister, the GWU will be asked to pay almost €2 million in compensation for removing this condition.

This will mean that the Union, an informal associate of the governing Labour Party, can turn almost 4,000 square metres of its prime location premises in Valletta into a commercial venture.

Currently, office space in Valletta is restricted and fetches some €300 per square metre a year.

According to Minister Zrinzo Azzopardi, this resolution would help the GWU sustain and improve its operations in ‘defending Maltese workers and trade unionism’.

Last May, following a court case that took years to conclude, Judge Mark Simiana confirmed that GWU violated its concession by abusively leasing parts of its premises on a commercial basis.

The court annulled the lease agreements but did not annul the Union’s original 1957 concession, through which a Dom Mintoff-led Labour government passed to the Union a large site previously occupied by the Auberge De France to host its new headquarters.

The court said it did not have the remit to annul the original concession, as requested by the PN in its challenge after the government failed to uphold the rule of law vis a vis the GWU.

Since Labour was re-elected to power in 2013, the GWU has become more of a business than a trade union.

While completely shedding its militantism for workers’ rights, the GWU started making millions from various commercial ventures, particularly with the government.

A case in point is part of the A3 tower in Marsa, which the Union owns. It is leasing it to Transport Malta for €500,000 a year to be used by the government’s roads authority.

Another section is rented to the government’s Human Rights Directorate. At the same time, the Union was given a multi-million-euro government contract to run the Community Workers Scheme on behalf of Jobsplus for those supposedly unemployed long-term.

The Community Workers Scheme has become a new government jobs agency to curry favour with voters, particularly in Gozo. The Union receives a cut on every worker recruited onto the scheme financed by taxpayers. Last year, the GWU

A report by the Auditor General in 2023 shows that the GWU, managing the Community Workers Scheme since its inception in 2015, is charging the State €112.40 (excluding VAT) per community worker per month in “administration fees”.

The GWU has many other business interests, including tourism and ports.