If we teachers decide to resign from the Malta Union of Teachers and join another union or set up a separate union, the losers will surely be the teachers themselves.

The MUT has had a glorious history of caring and fighting and suffering for teachers’ interests and what we should do is to try to understand what is really going on.

I have never agreed with the present MUT committee as regards its strategy on the energy tariffs. I can never agree with Mr Bencini and his committee as they have been ingratiating themselves with the union that has NEVER helped teachers.

I can never agree with Mr Bencini and his committee because they have gone marching in the streets with people who insulted our representatives most vulgarly. I cannot understand how an MUT committee could ever trust the General Workers’ Union and believe that it is caring for us.

But division is dangerously self-defeating and teachers can find themselves without a strong bulwark of defence.

We must show our MUT committee that we do not accept their line of action. We must stop grumbling in the staffrooms and in the corridors. We must tell the MUT committee to stop rubbing shoulders with the GWU.

We must really act fast for our own sake: we must call the MUT, send emails, write letters to bring Mr Bencini to his old self, to what he was: a veritable tower of strength for teachers.

Joe Fenech

MOSTA