The Church's Secretariat for Catholic Education has asked the Malta Union of Teachers to suspend next Thursday's strike in Church Schools, saying the industrial action is unjustified.

The union ordered the day-long strike by teachers in all state and Church schools after complaining that the government had not started talks on an 'addendum' to a 2007 agreement. It also accused the Church of dragging its feet on a new collective agreement for teachers in its schools.

The Church Secretariat for Education said in a statement this afternoon appeared to answer in kind, saying that it had invited the union for talks on a revision of the collective agreement soon after the government-MUT agreement was signed in 2007.

"The MUT, for some reason or other, took its time for the talks to start," the secretariat said.

However, several meetings had since been held and the agreement was close to being signed.

The latest draft was sent to the secretariat in the afternoon of April 2 and the MUT declared an industrial dispute on April 6, the secretariat said.

Further correspondence on the revised agreement was exchanged on April 22.

"It is clear that in three days it was not possible for the Church authorities to study the proposed agreement," the secretariat said.

It pointed out, however, that although the agreement had not been signed, Church School teachers started receiving an increase to their allowance as from January.

In the light of these facts, the strike directive was not justified and the secretariat said it as calling on the MUT to suspend industrial action in Church schools.