MUT calls off MCAST strike following understanding on way forward

The Malta Union of Teachers has called off a strike at the Malta College for Arts, Science and Technology after an agreement was reached on the way forward, the MUT said in a statement yesterday.

The MUT said it met again with the MCAST management, with the latter submitting another financial proposal for the collective agreement.

This proposal is still not acceptable to the union, but following an understanding on the way forward for the negotiation of this financial proposal in the context of the whole collective agreement, the MUT has agreed to suspend the full-day strike which was planned for Friday 15 December as a gesture of goodwill.

During the meeting, the MUT and MCAST also agreed to continue negotiations as from this Thursday, where they will be agreeing on a schedule of meetings that will lead to the conclusion of the negotiations. However, to avoid having a repeat of the situation whereby MCAST continued to drag its feet and find excuses to refrain from adhering to agreed commitments, all directives will remain in place unless otherwise notified.

Early this month, the MUT had announced a one-day strike at MCAST as part of a list of industrial directives it issued following the declaration of a trade dispute because of “lack of adherence to agreed deadlines in which the college had to provide counter proposal for the financials of the Collective Agreement being negotiated.”

In correspondence with the MCAST management, the MUT had noted that while the Union was taking agreements seriously with all the necessary commitment towards its members, MCAST was instead “dragging its feet and finding excuses to refrain from adhering to commitments to the detriment of educators and ultimately students.”

On Monday, the Times of Malta reported how MUT received an ‘unsatisfactory’ list of counter proposals on finances from MCAST administration. These proposals were sent on Monday.

Before the announcement that the strike was called off, in the past few days students complained that certain material which appeared in their examination papers was not included in the notes provided by teachers on ‘Moodle’, an online platform on which teachers share their notes with students.

Asked about this, a spokesman for the college administration said that the exams were supposed to include questions on material uploaded until 5 December, before the MUT directive was implemented.

The administration said that if students believe that this was not the case, they should approach it with their complaints.

MCAST statement

MCAST, in a statement, welcomed the withdrawal of strike directive by the MUT.

“MCAST would like to reaffirm that it is strongly committed to reaching a new collective agreement with MUT which gives a fair, just and improved package for its academic staff.

“MCAST has committed itself to conclude the text of this new agreement, already agreeing to a number of improved conditions for its staff and has also offered an improved financial package to its staff.

“MCAST has shown a strong commitment in this regard and looks forward to continue negotiations in order to achieve a fair and positive agreement for all MCAST lecturers and LSAs.

“MCAST strongly appeals to MUT to reconsider its current position and suspend all its other directives while negotiations are underway as is customary in normal industrial relation practices.

“MCAST strongly feels that given the present positive developments there is absolutely no justification for such directives to remain in force and appeals for common sense to prevail.”