NEWS | Wednesday, 03 December 2008

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MUT accuses CMTU of isolation tactics

Raphael Vassallo
The Malta Union of Teachers has accused its umbrella organisation, the Confederation of Malta Trade Unions, of pursuing a deliberate isolationist strategy, as the stand-off between the two associations yesterday degenerated into open war.
The CMTU on Monday unanimously decided to censure the MUT for its outspoken criticism of the confederation leadership in the past week, and issued a statement threatening to suspend the teachers’ union from the CMTU unless it changed its attitude towards it by this coming Friday.
But this only elicited a strongly worded counter statement from MUT chairman John Bencini, who hinted that the “infamous” meeting – which he described as a “conclave” – had been orchestrated in such a way to guarantee that the union would not be present to defend itself.
“Although the MUT requested the CMTU to postpone the meeting, because it had an important commitment elsewhere, the CMTU conveniently ignored this request and convened its members anyway to discuss what it described as ‘the MUT’s behaviour’, in the absence of any official representing the selfsame teacher’s union.”
Bencini also claimed that the real reason behind the Friday ultimatum was that the CMTU leadership secretly resented the fact that one of its members had refused to toe the line, insisting instead on further discussions on the revision of utility tariffs.
The MUT chairman brusquely concluded that under the prevailing circumstances, the union had lost all confidence in the leadership of the CMTU.
Talking to MaltaToday, union official Kevin Bonello further claimed that the Monday meeting had been deliberately arranged to ensure that MUT officials would not be present.
“MUT always holds its own meetings on a Monday, and this week we had important matters to attend to, which could not be postponed,” he said. “The CMTU knew this, and yet from one day to the next, it decided to hold its meeting to discuss our behaviour on the one day when we would not be able to attend.”
Bonello added that in this respect, other unions had been treated differently. “There have been instances when meetings have had to be postponed because a member union could not attend. When other unions ask for a meeting to be rescheduled, they are always accommodated. But when the MUT asks, it suddenly becomes impossible to reschedule, even though the meeting was called from one day to the next.”
Asked if the MUT was deliberating pulling out of the CMTU, Bonello would only reiterate the union’s public statement that “we have lost all confidence in the CMTU leadership.”
On its part, the CMTU also released a brief statement yesterday, tersely reminding the media that the Monday decision had been unanimously approved by all affiliated members present.
And in comments to MaltaToday, president William Portelli dismissed out of hand the MUT’s allegations of a deliberate isolationist strategy.
“For logistical reasons it was impossible to reschedule the meeting,” he countered, adding that other member unions had all made arrangements to be able to attend.
“I refuse to be drawn into a personal war of words,” he said when asked to comment on the MUT’s accusations. “Ultimately my allegiance is also to the other affiliated member organisations, and I am not at liberty to ignore them. For the present there is no alternative but to stick to our decision taken on Monday, which was unanimous.”

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