The Malta Union of Teachers (MUT) issued a set of industrial directives to its members at MCAST after the union claimed that the college had failed to honour the collective agreement that had been signed earlier this year.

In a statement issued on Monday, the Union said that it had informed the MCAST management and the Education ministry that it had declared a trade dispute with the college after it failed to adhere to the collective agreement with regards to salaries and allowances.

The union said that the school had repeated a series of mistakes in salaries and arrears and that the issues had been raised when the academic year had started. 

The MUT said that the issues are concerning the salary and allowance workings which were being conducted incorrectly, meaning that to date the majority of its members were still to receive what was justly theirs.  The Union also said that there were other concerns about the fact that the progression exercise has not been initiated even though the affected grades submitted their requests several months ago.

The Union said that MCAST has ignored the terms of agreement in the issue of the refund of works resources, before explaining that instead consent forms were issued.  The MUT claimed that the work resources were not finalised even though they would come into force as of the start of the new year.

The directives issued by the MUT are the following:

1) No communication with management, including verbal, written, email, participation in staff meetings and meetings with coordinators;

2) Attendance records withheld by lecturers indefinitely;

3) Communication with students only within time-tabled hours;

4) No assignments submitted for verification purposes;

5) No participation in any extracurricular activities, including graduation ceremonies, media events, and institute visits;

6) No industrial visits, apprenticeship visits and internship visits.

They will come into force from Thursday 6 December.