“Institutionalised discrimination” is how some Air Malta cabin crew members described a new collective agreement in an application before the Industrial Tribunal.

Some 40 employees who instituted the case are demanding annulment of the collective agreement signed last December.

They claim the agreement includes discriminatory clauses violating their basic fundamental rights, according to their application, a copy of which was seen by Times of Malta.

Their main bone of contention is the method in which pay increases will be worked out.

Unlike previous collective agreements signed with the Union of Cabin Crew, the government has this time accepted to ‘guarantee’ pay increases up to 2022 based on the best year of an individual employee’s take-home pay over a four-year period.

According to the agreement, cabin crew would receive at least €1,000 more than the best annual take-home pay between 2014 and 2017. The best year would be indicated by the individual employee.

According to the agreement, cabin crew would receive at least €1,000 more than the best annual take-home pay between 2014 and 2017

What the protesting employees are worried about is the fact that the total annual take-home selected includes both the basic salary as well as all allowances and overtime.

This arrangement was unacceptable to the cabin crew members who took their case to the Industrial Tribunal, particularly those who did not do a lot of overtime and extra duties between 2014 and 2017.

“We think this is discriminatory because while we shall be doing the same work, we will be paid differently. Our pay should be calculated on the hours of work we actually do and not on past performance. This does not make sense at all,” a cabin crew member said.

An air steward said it was suspected that some of the cabin crew knew what was happening and, “coincidentally”, had a “super” take-home pay last year, when negotiations with the government were taking place behind closed doors.

The protesting cabin staff members are insisting that the collective agreement or the parts related to the pay increases should be reversed or declared null and void.

They said it was clear that the fundamental principle of equal pay for equal work was being violated and, therefore, the collective agreement was breaching their fundamental rights.

They said it was clear that the fundamental principle of equal pay for equal work was being violated

The cabin crew are also demanding compensation.

Asked for a reaction, a spokesman for the Tourism Ministry, which had conducted the talks, acknowledged the litigation but declined to comment in view of the ongoing legal proceedings.

However, he stressed that “all collective agreements were negotiated over a long period of time with the workers’ representatives and it was the workers themselves who eventually voted in their majority to accept the negotiated collective agreements”.

The ministry said in a statement last December that the collective agreement with the Union of Cabin Crew was approved by 70 per cent of members.

Industrial relations observers commented that the outcome of the case could have a major impact on other similar collective agreements with other categories of Air Malta employees.

Although the collective agreements were never made public, Air Malta sources said similar ‘take-home’ pay clauses were included in other deals.