Pilots yesterday made a new offer to Air Malta over their collective agreement, lowering their overall pay rise demands for the next 29 months from Lm3 million to Lm2 million.

They are, however, still threatening to take strike action. When contacted, the president of the Airline Pilots Association (Alpa), James Fenech, said they would be forging ahead with preparations for a secret ballot that will decide whether or not to call a strike.

"As far as we are concerned nothing has changed on the airline's part since we last discussed the possibility of calling a strike."

The new offer was tabled at a conciliation meeting with the airline's management that had been scheduled a couple of weeks ago and closes by a further Lm1 million the gap between the pilots' demands and what the management has offered.

During an extraordinary general meeting on Tuesday, 55 of the association's 150 members pledged support for strike action and called for a secret vote to be taken.

The number of those attending the meeting, however, was not enough to approve a motion for strike action since Alpa's statute lays down that such a decision has to have the backing of at least two thirds of the membership.

While confirming that they had submitted a new offer, Mr Fenech insisted the association would be forging ahead with the vote.

"We hope the voting starts tomorrow (today) but we're not yet sure because of problems with contacting a number of our members," he said.

The voting should then take another two days, giving all pilots the chance to cast their vote. Shortly after news broke out that the pilots would be voting on strike action, the airline described their previous demands as "unreasonable" and "unsustainable". The airline pointed out that its pilots already enjoy one of the best pays on the island with an average gross annual salary of between Lm15,616 and Lm27,834.

The company said Alpa had refused a substantially increased offer which includes a minimum salary of Lm21,000 and a maximum salary of Lm44,000 for pilots.

The meeting yesterday had been called by Air Malta in a bid to solve the dispute through conciliation meetings after it declared a deadlock in talks.

The association had rejected compulsory conciliation, saying this is only intended to be used for the interpretation of a collective agreement that has already been signed.

In the end, the pilots themselves called for a conciliation meeting to have an arbiter declare that the management's call for a forced conciliation meeting over the collective agreement was irregular.

"It's basically a waste of time but as long as the airline keeps insisting on calling a forced conciliation meeting citing clause four (of the collective agreement) we have no option but to clear the matter this way," Mr Fenech said.

When contacted yesterday, Air Malta said it had no further comment to make on the matter at this stage.

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