University lecturers yesterday overwhelmingly rejected the government's proposal for a new collective agreement, opening the way for new industrial action.
The lecturers mainly objected to the pay offer they say does not match the conditions they would be expected to work under.
A total of 176 lecturers out of 178 rejected the draft agreement in a secret ballot held in the afternoon. According to the statute of the University Academic Staff Association (Umasa), a collective agreement needs to be approved by its members during an extraordinary general meeting.
The president of Umasa, Victor Buttigieg, said: "Through their vote the members have rejected the whole collective agreement that included conditions of work and was not limited to a salary package".
At the start of the month, the Malta Union of Teachers (MUT) and Umasa had ordered University and Junior College professors and lecturers to stage a one-day strike. The academic staff had boycotted the ceremony marking the opening of the University's academic year. Last June, academic staff were directed not to submit marks of corrected examination scripts or oral examinations and not to participate in any examination boards. This action was eventually withdrawn.
The government, the MUT and Umasa have been deadlocked over the financial package for some time in their efforts to agree on a new collective agreement for lecturers to replace the one that expired in December 2003.
The unions are demanding substantially more than what the government is offering and they insist the government's "ambitious" package of conditions ought to be reflected in their pay.
Mr Buttigieg said the next step was industrial action but he was not yet in a position to give any specifics. First he would have to sift through members' feedback and discuss the way forward with the MUT, he said.
MUT president John Bencini said his union and Umasa had been working together since negotiations for the new agreement started over a year ago.
He explained that, unlike Umasa, the MUT's statute does not bind it to seek its members' votes but the union had been consulted. Yesterday, the MUT met Junior College lecturers and is planning to meet its members who work at the University.