The recent invitation extended by the UHM to “disgruntled” teachers to leave their union, the MUT – a union of professionals – and join the UHM has only one interpretation. This is an extension of a seemingly tacit conspiracy or exercise, in conjunction with the present administration, in divisiveness: divide and rule. This is one conclusion that can be reached when three basic facts are considered. The first is that, ever since the UHM’s inception in the 1960s as the CSA, the MCSA and/or whatever else it has been called, its (open) secret raison d’être was to create a PN-friendly union for civil service bureaucrats as an alternative to the MLP-friendly GWU.

In view of this, it would be a good idea for teachers (and other professionals) to remember the stumbling blocks we had to endure, even up to the recent past, from civil service bureaucrats whenever we tried to improve and upgrade agreements or make new ones with the government. This always happened as they put on the Yes Minister act, by which they appeared to comply but, in reality, had their bureaucratic way. The administration has also thrown heavily bureaucratic dictates at us on occasion, thus putting on their Yes Minister act itself in their lieu.

The second fact is the expulsion of the MUT from the CMTU. On that occasion, too, the teachers’ union refused to be ‘friendly’ and a bedfellow of the administration. The third fact is, of course, that the invitation itself is intended to reduce the power of the MUT. Whatever other intentions the UHM might expound, its credibility during a PN government is as that of the GWU during a PL government.

For teachers, to leave the MUT and join the UHM is like presenting a bare throat to the assassin’s

dagger, because the UHM is infested with civil service bureaucrats when it comes to negotiating new deals and because the teachers would not constitute a majority of all teaching grades regarding representation. If there are teachers who are disgruntled with the MUT – and I bet there are quite a few, especially blue-blinkered people – all they have to do is vote out whomever they want to from the council. If they constitute a minority, then they have to abide by the will of the majority.

After all, the MUT, like all other organisations is not a reified abstract monolith, presided over by Bencini and Co. at the moment, but individuals, people, the people who form part of it and who have elected Bencini and Co. for a limited period of time to look after their interests. Next time around, they might well be changed. It is actually lawyers and politicians who tend to reify societies so that these can be then treated impersonally and, at times, non-humanely. One thing that is for sure, however, is that the MUT had been complacent and over-prudent with the PN administration for too long and that, in the recent past, teachers have collegially and most democratically chosen to elect less complacent representatives, which is certainly not to the liking of the government and its pragmatic allies.

If there are any teachers who are so utterly disgruntled with the MUT to the extent of leaving it, then let them do so, but never to join the UHM or the GWU. That is when they will lose their professionalism in status and in practice.

Frank Galea

ZEBBUG