Editorial

Last Friday, Umasa, the trade union that represents the academic staff at the University, and the MUT, which represents the academic staff at the Junior College, declared an industrial dispute at the University over the failure to deliver a counter proposal to a remuneration package. The academic staff were directed not to submit marks of corrected examination scripts or oral examinations and not participate in any examination boards. This means that if an agreement is not reached students will not be given their marks.

The reaction of the KSU - the students' council - was released within a few hours and was quite strong. The council described the actions as inappropriate, the cause of unnecessary distress and a breach of the Students' Rights Charter. "Students should be entitled to receive their results in due time," it said. The KSU somewhat mellowed its position in another statement last Tuesday, urging students not to blow the issue out of proportion and to keep their calm. It could be that KSU tried to downplay the situation after hundreds of students signed a petition on Facebook calling on the unions to "stop this nonsense and give us our exam results".

Meanwhile, the University said that the government will be appointing a team specifically to negotiate the collective agreement of the University and the Junior College academic staff.

Many will be surprised to read that the collective agreement whose renewal is being negotiated had elapsed in 2003, that is five years ago. This is certainly not the way to conduct industrial relations! It is true that part of the delay was due to the dispute between Umasa and the MUT. Both were saying they represent the academic staff. But it is also true that the government also dragged its feet, thus exacerbating the situation. This is not acceptable in this day and age.

The academic staff have the right to take industrial action but, perhaps more than others, they have a greater duty to weigh and weigh again the projected good that can come out of such action with the harm to others that can ensue.

This action by Umasa and the MUT exposes them to the accusation that the academic staff are taking the easy way out by ordering an action that would harm the students but which would not affect them negatively in any way. In this perspective one can understand the reaction of students who are angry as they feel they have become the target in a dispute they are not party to. It is true that all those hit adversely by an industrial action are in a certain sense innocent bystanders. But students during the exam period do feel, and in fact are, much more vulnerable than during the rest of the year. The threat that their exams' results will not be published adds unnecessary tension at an already very tense period. If the threat by the academic staff to withhold results is then put into practice a lot of unjustified hardship can follow.

On the brighter side one notes that both sides have said that a lot of progress had been achieved. A provisional agreement had been reached last year. Progress was registered since then as well. One augurs that more intense negotiations will break the deadlock.