Former Malta Union of Teachers general secretary Franklin Barbara denied he was behind an attempt to set up a breakaway union but said he would not rule out such an involvement in the long term.

Mr Barbara, who last month missed out on the union’s top post by a mere six votes, made his point when this newspaper sought his reaction to a report that a split was looming within the MUT.

According to MaltaToday, a number of teachers, kindergarten assistants and learning support assistants were complaining that the teachers’ union was, at times, in conflict with itself.

The union could not safeguard teachers’ interests and those of their superiors at the same time, they claimed. For this reason, they had decided to set up a new union, which would not be open to those in managerial positions.

Newly-elected MUT president Marco Bonnici told the Times of Malta the union had received no official correspondence on the matter up to that point in time, adding they had only read about it in the media.

Mr Bonnici said the MUT’s focus was to conclude new agreements for teachers by the end of the year.

Sources noted that Mr Barbara was behind the attempts to set up a new union, though he denied it.

“I am aware that some teachers and LSAs have met and I have been contacted in this regard but I was not involved,” he told this newspaper. 

Asked if he would exclude any future involvement in case the new union materialised, Mr Barbara excluded such possibility at least for the time being.

“After 10 years in trade unionism I want to have a much-needed rest,” he remarked.

For the long term, however, he would not rule out the possibility.

“One would exclude nothing but one has to see the circumstances at the time,” Mr Barbara said.

Looking at the wider picture, he expressed concern on the morale among teachers, which, he said, had reached its lowest ebb.

Former MUT president Kevin Bonello has cautioned against the creation of a splinter group saying this would only serve to weaken teachers’ leverage on decisions affecting their profession.

In a Facebook post, he argued that such a move could result in two weak organisations that might end up wasting their energies in recognition disputes rather than addressing bread and butter issues.

Such a situation could also delay negotiations on new collective agreements. Mr Bonello cited the example of the Bank of Valletta recognition dispute between the Malta Union of Bank Employees and the General Workers’ Union, which dragged for months.

As for the issue of possible conflicts of interests, Mr Bonello pointed out that such criticism made little sense because, most of the time, heads of schools were the ones fighting the system.

Sign up to our free newsletters

Get the best updates straight to your inbox:
Please select at least one mailing list.

You can unsubscribe at any time by clicking the link in the footer of our emails. We use Mailchimp as our marketing platform. By subscribing, you acknowledge that your information will be transferred to Mailchimp for processing.