Another drop in union members

di-ve news, 7 January 2004

VALLETTA, Malta (di-ve news)—January 07, 2004 —1235CET—Trade unions have reported another decline in membership for the second consecutive year, according by the Registrar of Trade Unions.

There were 86,061 members for the period ending June 2003 in the various trade unions. Union density has also declined slightly and stood at 62.5 per cent in the same period.

On their part, the employers' associations also reported a decline over the previous year. Accordingly, there were 8,960 members in the employers' associations in June 2003.

This news release presents an analysis of union membership and shows the latest patterns together with changes in trends over the last two decades.

In addition to this, a brief analysis of the collective agreements deposited at the registry of the Employment and Industrial Relations Department is also given.

It is to be observed herein that only the collective agreements filed at the Employment and Industrial Relations Department are considered in this publication. The source of the data on union membership is the Annual Report by the Registrar of Trade Unions whose report for 2003 has been published recently in the Government Gazette.

The collective agreements deposited at the registry of the Employment and Industrial Relations Department indicate that the largest extent of employees covered by collective agreements is found in the services sector. This may be the result of the collective agreement of the civil service whose employees belong to the services sector.

Most of the collective agreements whose expiry date fell between 2000-2002 were negotiated either by the General Workers' Union (GWU) or the Union Haddiema Maghqudin (UHM). Accordingly, the collective agreements deposited at the registry of the Employment and Industrial Relations Department indicate that the 67.9 per cent of the collective agreements whose expiry date fell between 2000-2002 were negotiated by GWU, while another 23.0 per cent were negotiated by the UHM.