Police close GWU Transport Section investigation: Malta Police Force

The Malta Police Force has closed its investigation into the Secretary of the GWU's Transport, Maritime and Aviation Section with no further action to be taken. The case began on 29 May 2026, when the Section Secretary sent a communication to GWU members at Resource Support and Services Ltd. (RSSL) during electoral silence.

Collective agreement negotiations between the GWU and RSSL management were still ongoing. The Section Secretary sent the message after members reached out to the union, having already received correspondence from RSSL management about those same negotiations. The GWU maintains the communication concerned only employment and industrial relations matters and carried no political content.

The Electoral Commission filed a criminal report against the Section Secretary. He was questioned under caution by the Criminal Investigation Department. After the complaint became public, the GWU issued a statement in his defence and formally notified the European Trade Union Confederation.

GWU Secretary General Kevin Camilleri welcomed the outcome but rejected it as a full resolution. "Our Section Secretary has been completely cleared, and we naturally welcome this outcome," he said. "However, he should never have been subjected to a criminal investigation in the first place.

A trade union secretary who informs members about the progress of negotiations concerning their collective agreement is simply carrying out his legitimate responsibilities as a workers' representative. " The GWU intends to bring the case before the ILO Committee on Freedom of Association to place it on the international record. The union has also called on Malta's competent authorities to clarify through legislative or regulatory action that electoral silence provisions do not extend to internal trade union communications on collective bargaining and employment matters.

In making that argument, the GWU cited three ILO conventions ratified by Malta—Convention No. 87 on Freedom of Association and Protection of the Right to Organise, Convention No. 98 on the Right to Organise and Collective Bargaining, and Convention No.

135 on Workers' Representatives—as the legal basis for its position that such communications are protected.