The state of industrial relations in Malta : a critical commentary

Abstract

Social partnership at national level is alive and well; but trade unions are struggling for relevance in the sprawling Maltese private sector. Just 36% of all workers in Malta in 2020 were trade union members, and most of these are employed in the public sector. The percentage of private sector employees covered by a collective agreement has fallen from 33% in 1995 to 27% in 2008 and to 13% in 2022. The number of collective agreements in force in the Maltese private sector stood at around 130 in 2022; it had been 212 in 1995 and 168 in 2008.

Four policy measures are proposed to halt, or even revise, trade union decline: (1) to encourage industry-wide, and therefore multi-employer, collective bargaining; (2) to consider compulsory trade union membership (with suitable opt-out provisions); (3) to extend the right to negotiate to multiple unions and/ or to a trade union with a worker membership below the 50% threshold; and (4) to transform Wage Regulation Orders into Sectoral Collective Agreements.