Labour Minister Yiannis Panayiotou made a fool of himself at the weekend when he issued an official statement denying he had made comments attributed to him in a report by the Cyprus News Agency (CNA) about the ongoing strike in the cement-making sector. It turned out that the news agency had a recording of what the minister had said at the House finance committee meeting.

What made his denial even more astonishing was the fact that the comments attributed to him were made at the meeting in front of deputies of the committee and therefore public record. Had he hoped that CNA, being a state news agency, would show deference and not call him out? He could have argued that his comments were taken out of context or had been misunderstood rather than denying he had made them.

Panayiotou, in effect tried to pass the responsibility for resolving the dispute and ending the strike, which had been going on for more than three weeks, and affected the construction sector as well, to the parties. First, he told Disy deputies, “as I consider the responsibility collective, if you also have the ability to influence someone and guide them so as to act more consensually, each one in his way could help.” Then he told Akel deputies, “you also have friendly unionists, whom you could talk to and ask to be more constructive and more positive, so they would agree to meet with the other side.”

While this was not an official request, it was nevertheless a request for assistance made by the minister of labour in public to political parties – an admission that the labour ministry, which has the responsibility for dealing with industrial relations was unable to resolve the dispute as both sides refused to budge from their respective positions. But if the labour ministry, with its countless technocrats and array of services, was unable to resolve the dispute, it was not doing its job properly.

The minister may have understood the implications of his comments after he had made them and realized that they reflected badly on him personally, as he was acting as the mediator in the dispute. Perhaps this experience will put an end to the practice of the labour minister acting as mediator in industrial disputes, which, in theory, should be the job of the technocrats. A politician cannot be an objective mediator and Panayiotou has proved this several times since his appointment, his blatant siding with the unions, when mediating in the past, giving rise to rumours that he was pursuing a personal agenda.

It is time the idea that a labour minister was also the state’s chief mediator was put aside. There are more important issues for the minister to deal with than act as the mediator between militant unionists and obdurate employers. This is what civil servants are paid to do and should be left to get on with the job. A labour minister can offer advice, or have some contacts with representatives of the warring sides, behind the scenes, but he should never seek the starring role of ‘bringer of industrial peace.’