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Alfred Buhagiar was an emblem of that part of the Maltese trade union movement that did not remain silent in the 1980s. A former vice president of the Catholic Action movement and one of the founders of Caritas, Buhagiar stood his ground at a time when teachers were considered enemies of the people. MaltaToday spoke to a distraught MUT president John Bencini on Buhagiar’s role in Maltese trade unionism.
Before becoming President of the CMTU Buhagiar served as MUT President for 22 years. Throughout the turbulent 1970s and 1980’s Buhagiar continued teaching while serving as MUT President. John Bencini recalls the time when Agatha Barbara abolished examinations in her botched attempt to introduce comprehensives in Malta. “At that time I used to teach in the same school as Buhagiar. Teachers were traumatised by these reforms. Ironically the MUT was and is still in favour of comprehensives but disagreed with the methods used by the government at that time”.
In the same year when Thatcher locked out thousands of miners in the UK, the Maltese Labour government used the same tactic to break the will of teachers who were merely following a work to rule directive. Bencini recalls the time when the then Education Minister Karmenu Mifsud Bonnici invited the MUT leadership for a coffee. As the MUT leaders were sipping their coffee in KMB’s house in Hamrun they were asked to sign a declaration not to follow their own directives. “Imagine the President of the MUT signing a declaration that he would not follow his own directives”. Subsequently Karmenu Mifsud Bonnici ordered the lock out of all those government teachers who, like Buhagiar, refused to sign the declaration. 2000 teachers ended up locked out of school without pay for almost two months.
Alfred Buhagiar, was the target of an intense hate campaign. His brother’s shop was blasted by a bomb. Bencini recalls when after the strike Buhagiar was transferred to a school in Paola. “Everybody knew about this transfer as it was advertised in a section of the press. A mob was waiting for Buhagiar to leave the school. They attacked his car”.
According to Bencini, Buhagiar’s greatest achievement was when in 1988 the professional status of the teaching profession was recognised by the government.
Trade unionism was in Alfred Buhagiar’s blood. For the past eight years Buhagiar served as CMTU President. Bencini praised Buhagiar’s role in trying to bridge the gap between the unions “in spite of many below the belt comments” in recent meetings on the social pact. In a bizarre twist of history, a few days before Buhagiar’s death the MUT suspended its affiliation within the CMTU. Bencini explains that the MUT had suspended its membership in the CMTU due to a “misunderstanding regarding the organisation of a press conference.”
James Debono reporting
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