In its media release announcing the signing of its agreement with the Medical Association of Malta (MAM), the government described the agreement as “historic”. It was splashed as such in the media, and many would have been forgiven had they thought this was a publicity blurb, a photo opportunity lauding the government on the eve of the general election that is due to be held soon.

The agreement was certainly welcome, seeing that the Mater Dei hospital is due soon to replace St Luke’s Hospital as the country’s main hospital. No one could doubt the need to have a contented medical staff at the new hospital. And the medical staff certainly deserved to get their due: the reputation they have of dedication to duty is fully deserved. In all the shortcomings at St Luke’s Hospital, no one has ever questioned the professionalism of the medical staff.

But from what is now slowly emerging, the agreement may turn out to be historic in more ways than one. For one, it may usher in a period of sharp unrest among sectors of government employees who could feel that they, too, deserve the same kind of treatment as given to the doctors.

For the agreement seems to have upset salary scales in the government service. And upset them rather seriously, too. The seeds may have been sown for a wholly undesirable and deplorable situation of serious industrial strife.

The government said nothing about salary scales in its media release of 1 November. That media release spoke of allowances for doctors under training, allowances for the consultants training them, and improved allowances for certain categories of doctors.

There was no reference to the departure from the salary scales.

There is probably no one in Malta who will begrudge the doctors their salary improvements, generous as they are. And not only because people need the doctors in their time of serious medical conditions.

The doctors deserve all that the country can afford to give them. But has the government opened a Pandora’s Box in its “historic” accord with them?

Already the lightning is flashing. The Malta Union of Teachers (MUT), without at all mentioning the agreement with the doctors, expressed concern that the government had allowed another union to unilaterally renegotiate its salary scales.

It was not that the MUT felt that the doctors did not deserve what they were given, but teachers were now wondering if they could strike a similar deal for themselves.

The MUT said allowances could be renegotiated by different sectors, but the renegotiation of pay scales contained in public service collective agreements by any one particular sector had not previously been allowed. Doctors in government service fall under the public service collective agreement.

As The Malta Independent asked editorially on 6 November, “what will the other professionals in government employment say? Will the architects, lawyers, university professors and other professional people in government employment be demanding the same conditions as the doctors have obtained? Will there be suggestions that other professionals in the government service have been discriminated against?”

That editorial looked incisively correctly into the future. Just hours after it appeared in print, the MUT held its news conference to give its views about the salary scales having been upset.

The Mater Dei hospital seems to be a millstone around the government’s neck. The delays in its construction and the spiralling costs have already cost it dearly with the electorate. The opposition has been clinically sharp and highly effective in its criticism.

Has the government now committed a blunder and upset salary scales established a few years ago? Has it let itself in for serious industrial

trouble before an election. Will it be facing that strife if re-elected, or will it be bequeathing it to the new government which the Malta Labour Party may be forming?

Was the government aware of what it was doing?