Some aspects of industrial relations legislation in Malta

Abstract

Several important attitudes evident today on the part of both management and unions were formed as far back as the Industrial Revolution with the improvement of the means of production. The 'relations' of production were altered in a distressing manner: "It has resolved personal worth into exchange value and in place of the numberless indefeasible chartered freedoms, has set up that single, unconscionable freedom - Free Trade. In one word, for exploitation, veiled by religions and political illusions, it has substituted naked, shameless, direct, brutal exploitation." This was the background against which the early struggles between capital and labour took place according to the Marxist interpretation of the Ind- ustrial Revolution. Here the need for good industrial relations was widely felt mainly due to the changing production methods i.e. from a domestic to a factory system, where there came into being large numbers of workmen. This does not mean that under the domestic system all was well and good, but the only two parties involved in such disputes were the employer and the employee. The important point about the factory system was, that disputes now involved greater numbers of workers and the employer no longer dealt with one individual but with a group. This gave rise to the concept of collectivity which on the other hand gave the employees a tremendous potential bargaining strength vis-a-vis their employees. Besides this, in domestic production one could identify differing individual needs while in the factory system individual needs were replaced by class needs. Under such conditions the nature of the dlsputes obviously differed.