Trade unions have progressively promoted the rights and prerogatives of their members and substantially improved the working and living conditions. Malta too has benefitted substantially since the pioneering work of the Fitters Union, established by the Dockyard Fitters as far back as 1884.
It is estimated that in Malta more than one in two workers is a trade union member, one of the highest unionisation rates in the EU.
The University of Malta also has a history of trade unionism. UMASA is currently the house union for academics. Over the years, trade union activity improved the conditions of the staff substantially.
But in 2023, this trend is being reversed and academic trade unionists are turning their backs on their members.
Instead of promoting their well-being and good working conditions, UMASA is agreeing to proposals that substantially diminish existing rights, and manifestly go counter to the thrust of social developments in industrial relations in Europe.
The two main areas where this is manifestly so regard sabbaticals and mandatory retirement.
Under previous university administrators, academics won the right to have a sabbatical to ensure that they can continue to improve themselves, thus able to retain their status as international currency.
This right is enshrined in the current collective agreement, and the University is obliged to make the necessary arrangements for this entitlement to be secured.
In the proposed new agreement, this entitlement is being dented substantially to the effect that sabbatical leave can only be taken for up to two years before statutory retiring age, i.e. only up to the age of 62.
The implications of this change are very serious: sabbatical leave, an important contribution to the life and standing of every academic, is being deemed by UMASA and the university as only useful up to a certain age. It is a text-book example of commodification of life-long learning by a bureaucracy.
But what is even worse is that the right to continue lecturing and researching beyond the statutory retirement age, while being slightly extended to non-professorial grades, is being curbed for full professors.
The abolition of mandatory retirement on the basis of age is an issue that is currently at the forefront of debate in the EU. The current rules on mandatory retirement ages vary, but it is broadly prohibited in most advanced countries outside and within Europe, with some exceptions when employers need to prove that there exist objective reasons why mandatory retirement is necessary.
Mandatory retirement for tenured university employees in the US ended in 1994 under an amendment to the Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967. Australia, New Zealand and some provinces of Canada have similar provisions.
The right to continue lecturing and researching beyond the statutory retirement age is being curbed for full professors- Mario Vassallo
The UK repealed the default retirement age of 65 in April 2011 and the matter is now regulated by the 2010 Equality Act.
In Ireland, the Employment Equality Acts 1998-2021 also prohibit discrimination in employment on a number of grounds, including age.
In Germany, the statutory retirement age is not mandatory and employment contracts do not end automatically when an employee is entitled to statutory pension. Neither does the receipt of any kind of pension constitute a sufficient reason for termination of employment.
In the Netherlands, no statutory mandatory retirement age from employment exists, and termination can be agreed upon in a contract of work.
Directive 2000/78/EC limits age discrimination only when employers are objectively and reasonably justified by a legitimate aim, including legitimate employment policy, labour market and vocational training objectives, and if the means of achieving that aim are appropriate and necessary. Of course this does not enforce a guillotine on mandatory retirement, but clearly sets the thrust for future developments across the EU.
Previous collective agreements at the university assumed that the conditions that militate in favour of age-related mandatory retirement do not exist. The university was practically implementing, ahead of time, a policy that did not force academics to be forcefully retired at a certain age if they are willing and able to continue to contribute to teaching and research in their field of excellence.
The proposed new arrangement reverses this, and makes it only possible for professors to work full-time until they are 75, irrespective of whether they are still able to function fully in their position.
Instead of abolishing hard-earned rights, UMASA should take a leaf from MAM collective agreements, which recognise continuous education activities and work outside office hours.
UMASA meanwhile, is silent on how the university has metamorphosised into a control-infested bureaucracy.
UMASA is very sadly complying with a regressive policy. It is reducing hard-won rights which had put the University of Malta at the forefront of the current thrust in industrial relations in Europe to the back of the queue.
Mario Vassallo is a professor of sociology at the University of Malta.