Editorial

We have been having a series of industrial actions, or threats of ones, by various trade unions lately. The General Workers' Union's swashbuckling style appears to have tempted other unions to follow suit. The government's non-confrontational style in industrial relations seems to have tempted formerly pacific unions to grow bolder and push their sectoral claims even at the expense of the community at large.

The Malta Union of Teachers has instructed its members to keep the marks they allocate to examination candidates to themselves, presumably until their union, after having won an industrial victory, instructs them to disclose the marks. One cannot but be worried by these actions.

The union's industrial dispute is about two matters: the office of the prime minister's failure to conclude with it and other unions representing people in the public service negotiations about the 2002-2004 collective agreement, and disagreement regarding facilitators in state schools. Industrial action regarding the latter dispute entails working to rule both by facilitators and by kindergarten assistants.

The dispute relating to facilitators should never have come into being. In August 1999 the Ministry of Education and the MUT seem to have agreed that the Certificate in Education Learning Support Facilitators obtainable from the University of Malta's Faculty of Education was equivalent to the Diploma in Facilitating Inclusive Education required by law, but since then the ministry has been insisting on an agreement regarding the 'position description' of facilitators, an agreement it regards as crucial for the implementation of the agreement regarding the facilitators certificate. Since an agreement is likely to be reached soon on this matter, the MUT could have exercised its patience a tad longer before resorting to working to rule.

The union's impatience regarding conclusion of the collective agreement for 2002-2004, which will include a sectoral agreement for teaching grades, is understandable as it always tries to avoid strikes that interfere with teaching programmes, but again one must ask if it was necessary at this point. It is time to control its impatience.

The collective agreement will cover the entire public sector, so it will be complex, and in any case we are still half way through 2002. Did the MUT have to go it on its own, making it difficult for the Education Office to conclude the process related to examinations, thus risking to lose sympathy from scores of thousands of parents.

As salaries in the private sector grow handsomer, the government must strive to make salaries for teachers and other educators as attractive as possible to young graduates.

It would disastrous for this country were its schools to be staffed by second-raters who resorted to teaching simply because they could not find better paid jobs elsewhere. Good education remains, as it will always remain, crucial.

It is, of course, a pity that a collective agreement for teachers is only part of a much wider agreement, for unlike many other public sector employees most teachers do a very good job and deserve all the encouragement they can get. This agreement must be concluded in time for the necessary financial provision to be made in the 2003 budget, so let us get on with it before this cool spring becomes a hot summer.