The Institute of Tourism Studies (ITS) will persist with its disciplinary action against two lecturers who obeyed directives issued by their union after a constitutional court ruled there were other remedies the lecturers could have resorted to.
The Union of Professional Educators is in a long-standing dispute with the ITS over what it says are unsafe working conditions and the mixing of students of different levels.
ITS is the country’s leading tourism and hospitality school. While the majority of staff members are represented by the Malta Union of Teachers, the UPE represents a number of staffers.
Management had instructed lecturers to merge novice students with diploma students, who are more advanced in their studies, but the lecturers objected.
They argued there were clear health and safety concerns when exposing new students to machinery and tools used in food preparation and the situation was not conducive to an effective learning environment.
However, the tourism school charged the lecturers with “gross misconduct” saying they had breached one of the clauses of their collective agreement when they obeyed directives issued by their union, which did not enjoy recognition.
Mr Justice Neville Camilleri, presiding over the constitutional court, has now turned down a request by the lecturers and the union for an interim measure blocking the disciplinary action.
The lecturers had claimed the clause in the collective agreement on which the disciplinary action was based was anti-constitutional and went against workers’ basic freedom to be affiliated with a union of their choice.
The clause states that “… any academics who organise and/or take part in any unofficial industrial action shall be liable to disciplinary action which may lead to dismissal”.
Without going into the merits of the complaint, the court ruled that an interim measure was extraordinary in nature and that the lecturers and the union had other remedies to resort to, including the filing of a case before the industrial relations tribunal.