Students to hold rally over collective agreement impasse
Unacceptable and unjust situation - KSU
Students are to hold a rally on Wednesday to voice their disapproval at the "unacceptable and unjust" situation caused by the impasse between the government and unions over the lecturers' collective agreement.
The rally will aim to put pressure on both parties and show them that students are joining forces in the belief that they cannot be used as a bargaining tool, University Students' Council (KSU) president Roberta Avellino yesterday told a news conference.
Students were also asked to sign an online petition, accessible at ksu.org.mt, urging the government and unions to solve the current stalemate and reach a long term solution to a dispute that has been dragging on for months.
The government, the University of Malta Academic Staff Association and the Malta Union of Teachers have been deadlocked over the financial package of the new collective agreement for lecturers to replace the one that expired in December 2003.
After a one-day strike on October 30 failed to make the government budge, practically all of the 178 lecturers rejected the financial package offered.
On December 5, unions instructed their members to work to rule and, a few weeks later, they stepped up their action and ordered academic staff to withhold all end-of-semester examination papers and any results related to continuous assessment.
KSU's Ms Avellino said that the worst effect of the industrial action was the disruption of the academic year, which would lead to added stress on students and a burden on the university's administration.
"The government needs to start practising what it preaches and invest in education... while the unions should stop using intimidating tactics," Ms Avellino said.
In a statement, Studenti Demokristiani Maltin expressed its full support for KSU and its directives and hoped that common sense would prevail and a just solution would be found for the benefit of all the parties.
When contacted, Umasa president Victor Buttigieg, said: "Unfortunately when you operate within a university, any industrial action is bound to affect students.
"We don't like the situation and hoped that it would have been solved earlier...
"We are open to negotiation. Unless government opens up to negotiations, no solution can be found," he said.
The government said it was always ready to resume talks if the unions withdrew the industrial action, as was common practice.
"Unions... need to be realistic and consider the local circumstances and not draw parallels with salaries in other countries where the situations are quite different from ours," the government said.