Physiotherapists are professionals who have every right to have a tailormade sectoral agreement just as medical physicists, environmental health officers, nurses, doctors, midwives, pharmacists, social workers, ecg technicians, the Malta Union of Midwives and Nurses said.
That is the reason why sectoral agreements exist, the MUMN said in a statement There is acollective agreement for the whole public service and then there are the sectoral agreements that go into detail for each profession. For this reason physiotherapists have a right not to form part of the Allied Health Profession as dictated by the UHM and the Government together.
MUMN would like to point out that after the Director of Labour DIER had accepted the judicial protest made by MUMN a week ago, the process of verification was commenced by the DIER to determine which union possesses the majority of the Physiotherapists for the sole recognition purposes. In fact MUMN had submitted all its membership forms (as requested by the DIER) of the physiotherapists so that such verification could take place.
UHM, the MUMN said, is now imposing on the Director of Labour (DIER) not to publish the verification of the physiotherapists performed by the DIER after the judicial protest made by MUMN. UHM’s insistence with the office of the DIER so as not to issue the result of the physiotherapists’ verification is derived purely from the fact that MUMN has the vast majority of physiotherapists as its members, thus such result would cause a huge embarrassment for UHM.
UHM even resorted to threats to stop the natural process of verification of the sole recognition of physiotherapists, the MUMN said. UHM is threatening to issue industrial action directives to the other Allied Health Professions so that the fundamental right of association and representation of the physiotherapists will be eliminated, the MUMN added.
In the light of the threats of an industrial action issued by UHM against the right of freedom of association and representation of physiotherapists, MUMN is ready to once again resort to the Court of Law and also ready to issue a series of industrial actions to all physiotherapists in the health service.
MUMN will not accept to have its members intimidated by any other union. MUMN said it will use all its force in the health sector if any other union is to threaten its members or use other professions just for the scope as to impede the right of physiotherapists, to be solely represented by MUMN.