Government schools were quiet and empty this morning as a teachers' strike ordered by the Malta Union of Teachers appeared to have almost total support.

The Ministry of Education itself yesterday said there would be no classes and urged parents not to take their children to school.

It was business as usual at Church schools, where a strike was called off on Monday after agreement with the Church authorities on a new collective agreement.

MUT President John Bencini told timesofmalta.com that according to initial reports no teachers, including head teachers and assistant heads had turned up in many schools. In others, their numbers could be counted on one hand. In some areas, the only staff that turned up were those who had appointments for interviews in the coming days, he said. Gozo was a case in point.

The strike was ordered after the union complained that a 14-month-old government commitment to discuss an addendum to a 2007 collective agreement had not been honoured.

Mr Bencini said it was unfortunate that at an eleventh-hour conciliation meeting held yesterday, the government delegation had not come up with any proposals to resolve the issue.

“They came empty handed, they did not even make one proposal. We even offered to call off the work to rule which starts from Monday if both sides agreed to refrain from attacking each other and moved forward, but although we agreed on this, the government continued to attack the union through a statement it issued immediately after the meeting,” Mr Bencini complained.

He warned that the work to rule would be even worse than the strike.

“The strike comes and goes, but the work to rule, which will see the teachers perform only their teaching duties, will practically bring the schools to a standstill,” he said.

What the teachers wanted, he said, was recognition of the work they did, which went well beyond the actual classroom teaching.

“In 2007, during the reform agreement talks, we took their word that they could not improve compensation. Teachers only received a €5 per month increase to their allowance. Then we found out that, at the same time, the government was giving more generous increases to other sectors,” Mr Bencini said.

“We are not greedy, just see what work the teachers do beyond teaching and you would have a better idea. We do not know how the minister can claim that our proposals will cost €15 million. That is Lm6.4 million in the old currency, of which some Lm2.8 million goes back in taxation. And we are talking about 6,500 teachers, and several other grades.

“But the most serious issue is that the government has not even given us the chance to explain our proposals, and how they can be met. We acknowledge that these are difficult times economically, but the government has not even once given us the opportunity to discuss how our requests can me met, even staggered over a period. It has preempted everything. Clearly, the minister is being very wrongly advised,” Mr Bencini complained.

It was also shameful, he added, that although the MUT declared this industrial dispute last February, it was only a few hours before the strike came into effect that the ministry in a handwritten letter demanded the conciliation meeting, saying that was required in terms of the collective agreement and the law.

“We willingly went for conciliation, but what stopped them from requesting the meeting before this late hour?" Mr Bencini asked.

He thanked all teachers for their support.

The Education Division in a statement thanked parents for having in most cases taken its advice not to send children to school. It said it regretted having to take this step, but it was the best one in the interest of children's safety since there was no one to take care of them.

The division said it was committed to put the children's interests first.