MUMN And Perm Sec Face Off Over ‘Friends With Benefits Political Appointee’ Attending Industrial Relations Meetings
Malta’s Union for Midwives and Nurses will not attend any meetings to discuss sectoral agreements in the presence of advisor Jeremy Camilleri, who it described as “a political appointee” that was given the job for his work on the Labour Party’s general election campaign.
MUMN was set to meet with the Permanent Secretary of the Health Ministry, Joseph Chetcuti, today to discuss the issue of Joseph Pace, the Mount Carmel nurse who is facing criminal charges over a patient self-harming. However, the union was also set to discuss sectoral agreements.
The union said it was “shocked and surprised” to find out that all industrial relations meetings will include Camileri, a former GWU official. This is the first major hurdle for Chetcuti, who was only appointed to the role in April 2022.
“Such appointment as a position of trust is a mere ‘job for the boys’ given the title of ‘adviser; just to reward Jeremy Camilleri for his input in the general election campaign in favour of the Labour Party,” it said.
“It is clear that the new Perm. Sec has rendered irrelevant high Government officials within the Health Department with a position of trust granted to the Jeremy Camilleri ex-official GWU. Such ‘friends with benefit’ reflect the background of the current new perm sec who by coincidence also happens to be an ex GWU official also.”
MUMN will be registering an industrial dispute and will be issuing directives to all hospital entities. It will reveal the directives in a press conference at a later date.
MUMN stressed that in the past similar appointments eventually resulted in the resignation of the Director-General.
“It is evident that the current newly appointed Perm Sec, instead of learning from past mistakes, resorted to once again appointing people merely through their political connections and with no status within the government scales,” it said.
“It is also to be noted that even under the Nationalist Government, when this same incident occurred, but this time it was an ex-UHM official, MUMN objected to attending meetings when this adviser was present.”
The decision to skip out on the meeting was approved by Pace.
According to MUMN, when it raised the issue, the Perm Sec simply stated that “no one can tell him what to do”.
“This shows no respect not only to Joseph Pace but also to all union officials. To defend his ‘friends with benefits’, the newly appointed erm Sec is ready to take MUMN to court by issuing a mandate if MUMN is to resort to industrial actions to defend its rights that just political appointees of other ex-union officials are not acceptable in MUMN meetings. Such heavy threats show the desperation of the Perm Sec to defend such ‘friends with benefits; and ‘job for the boys’.”
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