Three members of the council of the Malta Union of Teachers said on Tuesday that they had resigned because they learnt about certain aspects of the new collective agreement for teachers from the media.

Rita Catania, David Rossi and George Debono said that the council was never presented with a complete printed version of the agreement.

When the agreement was discussed, they had voted against its provisions on pay and conditions, although they had respected the will of the majority.

However, a shadow had been cast because those votes were taken when council members were not fully aware of all details.

Furthermore, it was shameful that even when the agreement was presented to the union's delegates, six pages of the deal were missing. And the delegates were asked to keep proceedings secret.

The three former council members said they had lost confidence in the leadership of the MUT and its structures.

Earlier, Times of Malta reported that teachers feel “betrayed” by their own union after the publication of an agreement with the government revealed that they would not be getting the sort of pay raise they were promised. 

The agreement was signed in December following the threat of a strike –  called off when the MUT reached an arrangement which “superseded the 20 per cent pay rise request” (over five years), union president Marco Bonnici had said.

But educators said that they were only getting a slight increase, while the reported bumps only applied to some teachers with years of experience.

Two teachers yesterday said their increase would be equivalent to seven per cent, which includes an increment for State employees that was agreed upon earlier last year.

Another educator told the Times of Malta that her pay would increase by a mere €53 gross each month.

“We were misled by the MUT, with the slight increment doing nothing to encourage anyone to take up the profession, despite the current teacher shortage,” a teacher said.

“The union sent a questionnaire asking us whether we agreed to a 14 per cent increase in the first year, however it now transpires that not everyone will benefit from this increase – only those within the higher grades and with years of experience will be given such increments.”

She said that the “cherry on the cake” was that the MUT had signed the agreement behind the educators’ backs.

The uproar was accompanied by the resignation of three MUT council members

“To add insult to injury, the agreement increases our workload in the shape of Learning Outcome Frameworks, among other things, which several teachers do not agree with, just as they did not agree with the removal of the junior lyceum system,” she said.

The authorities were treating students as guinea pigs, she said, adding that at the end of the day, it was the children who were suffering from the increased stress on teachers, because the pressure hindered productivity.

Another educator highlighted the different resource allowances introduced in the agreement, which are being allocated to educators according to their scale.

Irrespective of the scale they fell in, educators had the same workload and need of resources, he insisted.

The agreement also lacked any kind of health insurance, he added.

He also questioned why educators were kept in the dark about the agreement, which covered work conditions of thousands of employees for the next five years.

Yet another teacher complained about the “inflated figures”, noting that although the increments were spread over five years, the added workload was being implemented immediately.

The teachers have set up an online petition insisting on what they were promised.

The petition, which has garnered more than 1,000 signatures so far, says that educators were “betrayed when they were told that all teaching grades will be getting a 14 per cent increase in the first year of the agreement”.

Besides, their workload will be increasing “drastically” with the introduction of new assessment methods.

When contacted, the MUT said it was currently informing members about what the sectoral agreement entailed, and would be answering the “many queries”.

A spokesman confirmed that the union had accepted the three council resignations, noting that in their formal notification, the former members did not say why they were resigning.