The teachers’ union has called on Education Minister Clifton Grima to directly participate in talks for a new collective agreement for MCAST lecturers.

Malta Union of Teachers president Marco Bonnici told a protest on the grounds of the Education Ministry that he was making a direct plea to Grima.

“Minister, you are responsible for MCAST. Whatever happens in these negotiations, our members are your employees. They know you as their minister and they want you to step up,” Bonnici said.

“They want to know that if no one else cares about them, you do.”

The last collective agreement expired three years ago and protracted talks collapsed recently, with the government’s industrial relations arm saying the union’s demands were unacceptable. It also warned that talks would not resume until the union lifted industrial action that impacted students. 

The MUT has instructed lecturers not to disclose assessment marks to students, not to show up for staff meetings, to limit work to essential tasks like teaching, and to halt research activities, including providing support to students for their dissertations.

Two weeks ago, the government’s top industrial relations negotiator, Joyce Cassar, said MCAST management had accepted many demands made by the union.

On Tuesday, Bonnici said that people who never set foot in MCAST should not dictate what should be in the agreement.

Asked later to specify who he was referring to, Bonnici said he was speaking about Cassar. He said the union was willing to meet and negotiate further to conclude the agreement. “But the willingness for this to happen needs to come from you as well, minister.”

Before hearing the MUT president speak, MCAST employees honked horns while chanting, “We are not lecturers of the third class.” They held signs reading “We have waited three years for an agreement.”

Students back lecturers

Students chanted, “You paid them peanuts, but they continued working.”

Engineering student Ayrton Cassar said students were in a “desperate state.”

“We have no assignments, no exams. We should be focusing on our work, but in the state we are in, we have no idea what will happen,” Cassar, who is in his last year of studies, said.

He said he was showing solidarity with lecturers because they deserved better wages and conditions.

“If they are paid well, we will get a better education.”

The 24-year-old said students risked finishing their course with an administrative pass.

“We will end up in a situation where our certificates will be stained for the rest of our lives,” he said.

Alison Shaw, an IT lecturer, said she was protesting because “there has been a media narrative that is propagating falsehoods and misconceptions.”

'Unacceptable demands'

The government, in an unusual move, last week went public with the union’s demands. People and Standards Permanent Secretary Cassar said she went public with the union’s demands to give students, their parents, and even lecturers “insight into the situation.”

She said the demand for lecturers to receive a €400 allowance for re-sit exam corrections, an extra 10 days of leave, and a cap the number of students admitted into diploma courses at MCAST were unacceptable.

Cassar said that the government was also not accepting an MUT demand to double existing work-from-home provisions to 16 hours per week.

Following his speech, MUT president Bonnici was specifically asked about the remote working and re-sit allowance proposal.

“The remote working proposal we made was not for lecturers but other positions that work 40 hours a week, (such as directors and student mentors). The government provides remote working for its employees, and we asked that it is given to these workers as well,” he said.

On the €400 demand, Bonnici said that the proposal was taken out of context.

“If you remove the proposal from its context, it does not make sense. But the sense comes from this: when we ask for a €1 increase, the government asks for a justification, and when we explained the justification, they attacked us with it.”

Bonnici said he was willing to put several proposals on the table to come to a settlement.

“In negotiations, you give up something to get something else instead. There are several things that were part of the discussion and no longer are,” he said.

But a demand was not completely off the table until a whole package was agree.

The protest at the Education Ministry on Tuesday morning.