Here is a translation of the press release published by the MUT published yesterday.
Dear members in State schools and in Church schools,
We are communicating with you because it is necessary for MUT’s position to be clear as we are in the most difficult phase of the negotiations of the new sectoral agreement.
Today, May 20, was supposed to be the day on which we were going to present the agreement to you. This date was scheduled many weeks ago and was communicated to the Ministry of Education so that both parties could prepare for it. There was no objection from the Ministry in order for us to close the agreement in this term of time. There was also a booking of a room by the MUT in order for this to happen. As you can see our plans to present the agreement to you today faded away and instead of having an agreement ready to be presented, we have an industrial dispute.
We have come to this stage because while negotiations have advanced, the financial package negotiations have not been concluded. Such negotiations were and are still uphill but we were seeing possibilities of an end to it. This is until we found a wall of several floors in front of us erected in the last days. This happened through a document called by the government “comprehensive document,” which was presented on May 10. The document was not immediately accepted by the MUT, because it was a regression of what we were negotiating and it would stagnate the negotiations. We do not have to make the list of what was considered unacceptable by the MUT in this document, because during the weekend these points were mentioned frequently. You can find these points in the statement we issued on Saturday, 18 May 2024. The MUT could have declared an industrial dispute with the government at the time the document was shown, that is on 10 May.
We did not do this because we believed in the dialogue that could lead to the objections in the document being addressed and the agreement being concluded as planned. We worked so that further meetings were held and this led to two meetings during the past week, which were led by the Minister of Education in the presence of the Permanent Secretary and the IRU. While a number of points were addressed verbally, others that were objectionable to the MUT remained in force and there was no unblocking regarding them. The MUT council met on Thursday 16 May to discuss the situation. The council could have declared a dispute and started industrial actions from today. Instead, it was decided to give the government an ultimatum of one week in order to find a solution. This was done with responsibility and so that the negotiations could continue. We now have a week ahead of us which could unblock the situation towards a new agreement.
As of the time this communication is being sent, we have only one scheduled meeting with the government. We asked for more meetings during this week, but we still don’t have an answer. We will certainly not resolve the situation in one meeting. We would like to make reference to the request by some that the agreement be published. First of all, for there to be an agreement, there must be an agreement between the MUT and the government. There is no agreement, and therefore no agreement exists. There are proposals from the government that are still not satisfactory for the MUT.
Now we have the threat that the government will publish the proposals of the agreement. When this happens it will mean that the government will decide on its own what the agreement should be for all of us, because had we agreed we would have an agreement to present. We assure you that the agreement at the stage as is, still contains many deficiencies, which is the very reason why it has not yet been concluded. The government has just stated that it has recently signed 66 agreements affecting 14,000 employees. Our agreement affects more than 12,000 employees. This is almost the size of the 66 agreements he has already signed. Did any of us see these 66 agreements when they were being negotiated? Did any of us see these agreements when they were signed or after? They asked our friends in the technical scales in the schools, who found out that they have a new agreement last week and that to this day they do not know what it contains. Not only were the negotiations done behind their backs, but the agreement is secret. Did we hear in these 66 agreements any statement from any minister telling us how much an employee would get? We didn’t hear that when the 66 agreements were being negotiated nor after.
But we are different, and our financial package is used to create hatred against us, as happened last week. All we would like is to have an agreement that recognizes our work. It is a great irresponsibility that in order to get what we deserve, an attempt is made to discredit the MUT and the educators are portrayed to the public as workers who want to attract them. We will not accept this and that was why during the weekend we published all the evidence that shows that what we said was all true. We understand that the time is special, with the elections in a few weeks, but we never wanted to reach today without an agreement. It was the government’s decision that led to a regression in the negotiations. While we thank you for your continued support, we are continuing our work.”
Thank you, Marco, Elaine, Chris