The government has so far not replied to a compromise proposal made by the Malta Union of Teachers and the University of Malta Academic Staff Association in the ongoing dispute over the pay of lecturers at the University and the Junior College, MUT President John Bencini said this morning.
The Finance Ministry on Tuesday gave the unions an ultimatum up to noon yesterday to accept or reject its own offer and the union replied with its own proposal.
Mr Bencini said that while he was sorry that the two sides had not resumed talks yet, it was positive that the government had not mentioned the ultimatum again.
"With talks, we may reach a compromise, but it would be very dangerous to slam the door on the trade unions. Such an attitude would cause many problems at the University," Mr Bencini warned.
He said he was extremely disappointed over the government statement issued on Tuesday where it was claimed that the union's demands would cost taxpayers €141 million.
"The government must explain how it reached that figure, which incidentally covers up to 2014.
"What appears to have happened is that the government only considered our original demand, not our current, lower demand, It then also included performance bonuses in full for all the 800 academic staff members, thus wrongly concluding that all would receive their bonus. It also ignored taxation, in many cases at 35%.
"What the government has done is extremely misleading and unfair. This is an attempt to make us look greedy, robbing us of support. Some people, without knowing the facts, have started to insult us," a clearly angry Mr Bencini said.
He said the MUT calculated that its current demands would only cost some €60 million over the same number of years.
He further pointed out that this was not just the renewal of a collective agreement, but a whole new reform agreement which would change the direction of the University. In many cases, it placed new demands on lecturers, such as working in the evenings without the allowances they currently received.
"This government is acting like it wants to buy a Jaguar with the price of a Mini Minor" Mr Bencini said, repeating a comment by a university lecturer yesterday.
He pointed out that the new proposed agreement also addressed the ills which many people complained about - such as when lecturers did not turn up for lectures, even when that was because of consultancy work requested by the government itself!
"Ultimately, this agreement makes for a better University, which will benefit the students. Some are not seeing this yet, and we will not shirk from explaining it to the students if this situation continues for too long," Mr Bencini said.