Malta Union of Teachers faces split: New union for educators being set up

In the wake of mounting anger among educators after they were deceived over promised wage increases, three former council members of the Malta Union of Teachers are forming a new union.

Rita Catania, David Rossi and George Debono, who resigned from the MUT council earlier this week, have joined the UHM and formed a temporary committee to initiate the process that would set up a new union for educators.

The annoucement was made on Wednesday morning by the UHM and the new union under its aegis will be called the Union of Professional Educators.

The development comes hours before the MUT will be holding a press conference to clarify aspects of the sectoral agreement concluded on 21 December. This will be the first public appearance for the MUT's top officials after they received flak from members over their handling of the agreement.

Educators only got to know the financial aspects of the agreement when these were published by MaltaToday. The higher allowances, including a new resources allowance, however, did not make up the 28% increase educators had been promised. The fact is that over the five-year span, educators would be getting less than half the increase they were promised.

The MUT was forced to admit that in its calculations it had also included the salary increases educators were going to receive anyhow as a result of the public service collective agreement finalised in April last year.

The situation has angered the teaching body with this newspaper receiving numerous complaints over how educators were deceived by their own union.

Education Minister Evarist Bartolo has so far not commented publicly in the wake of the angry reaction by educators.