A general union

I read with interest the article Teachers And Stress: Pressures Of Life At The Chalkface by John Bencini, president of the MUT (August 31). This smart, brave person, indirectly but effectively, attributes the pleasantries of longer holidays and shorter working hours to the highly stressful and unbearable reality teachers lead.

Something which I admire in Mr Bencini is that he has no political agenda and is never satisfied with what they already have. No wonder his union is the strongest sectoral force in Malta, as he had stated previously (August 11).

I remember when that the government had passed a law to remove vacation leave due to holidays falling on weekends, the MUT, out of all people, was one of the leading unions that protested, even though teachers have surplus holidays.

Forget the fact that they finish early from school because, according to them, this is counter-balanced by always having loads of work to do at home. Forget as well that they also benefit from gratis half days and gratis breaks.

The remaining superb condition is that they have a lot of holidays. But even though they have ample time to charge their "batteries" (energy stores), they still keep complaining about their stress and hope for better conditions of work such as minimally reducing their work load and reducing class size.

The author of this feature referred to a study in Germany. But do schools in Germany, in general, operate exactly like those in Malta? I am writing this letter in good faith and not to make fun of the MUT. However, I do wish one realises that compared to several other countries abroad, teachers in Malta are not as bad as the MUT portrays them to be. But, again, I tend to agree with their effective strategy of always aiming for more.

Now, don't tell me about the salaries and the good climate the Germans enjoy. Name any profession and you shall see that abroad they earn twice or three times as much. After all, practically all Maltese professionals start from salary scale 9, and teachers are no exception. Even with regard to weather, every Maltese worker is made of flesh and blood and so feels the summer heat too.

But stress is not solely encountered in the classroom. Stress is defined as the physiological, psychological and behavioural response of an individual seeking to adapt and adjust to internal and/or external pressures. Jobs where a person is pressed for time, is goal-oriented or working in a highly competitive environment are always, in general, very stressful. Such jobs are usually characterised by a high percentage rate of resignations. So, saying that 50 workers resigned from a workforce of say 5,000 is still just one per cent. Do you know what I mean?

However, not all workers are compensated by roughly two and a half months of summer holidays (to say the very least) in order to charge their "batteries".

I am aware that these workers cannot avail themselves of the same amount of holidays that school employees enjoy. However, I often proposed that such less fortunate workers should be offered the possibility of earlier retirement and still receive full pension. So here is some food for thought for the MUT: Become a general union.

In fact, the words MUT are a bit misleading because, over the past years, it has grown gradually to become a sort of a small general union by incorporating other professionals besides teachers, such as facilitators and kindergarten assistants. Am I right?

Over-worked employees ought to find a better future that offers them greater opportunities for free leisure time. They say that, if you can't beat them, join them. This, however, does not imply that everyone should opt to work in a school setting. We do not want to have a hospital to be further brain-drained from health professionals. We also do not want our favourite supermarkets to be deprived of assistants and to have piles of dust and rubbish because we could not any longer find contract cleaners.

Who wants a union that is more concerned with national issues (that are the prerogative of the government of the day to solve) rather than focusing first on the pleas of its members? I humbly think that MUT can offer a ray of hope to various working sectors.

If one looks at the history of trade unionism in Malta, one realises that certain general unions were in fact sectoral at first. Then, throughout the years, they grew to become general unions, accepting a wide selection of both manual and professional workers.