The Malta Union of Midwives and Nurses has registered an industrial dispute and threatened to issue directives over issues being faced in the negotiation of a new sectoral agreement for nurses and midwives.

This was explained in a letter sent by the union to nurses and midwives on Monday, where the two major issues being faced during the negotiations were outlined.

The first issue explained by the MUMN was the health ministry’s apparent use of political advisors in discussions.

“MUMN was astonished that in the nurses and midwives' sectoral agreement, a political advisor to the Permanent Secretary is to be present when meeting with MUMN Officials,” the union said, adding that for other sectoral agreements, including the one of the doctors and that of Allied Health, no political advisor was present.

The union noted that the political advisor appointed has “no insight and no knowledge and totally no experience in issues pertaining to the nursing and midwifery grades.”

The MUMN said that the advisors have been appointed so that the MUMN is outnumbered in negotiations, so that they are more interruptions and counter arguments against their proposals, so there are as many people as possible in meetings to shoot down MUMN proposals, and so the current Permanent Secretary appeases those politically close to him.

For these reasons, the MUMN said that it is refusing to attend any meeting on the sectoral agreement where any political advisors are present for the meeting.

“Sectoral agreements should only involve Government Officials. It is unacceptable that the Government intends to give a hard time to MUMN to negotiate an innovative sectoral agreement that retains and attracts a decent nursing and midwifery work force,” the union said.

The MUMN also said that it has suffered a “typical musical chairs situation” from the government in order for them to avoid certain proposals which the MUMN has included in its sectoral agreement.

“Tax Incentives on overtime and Pension Schemes proposed by MUMN were directed by the Permanent Secretary to the Finance Minister. MUMN then requested a meeting with the Finance Minister who refused to meet MUMN and re-directed MUMN back to the Permanent Secretary hence the musical chairs,” the union said.

The union said that they haven’t even been allowed to discuss Pension Schemes similar to the one handed over to the consultants in their sectoral agreement by removing their capping.

Tax incentives on overtime handed over to the police force is also being refused to be discussed with MUMN and a musical chair approach has already begun for MUMN to lose heart in such proposals, the union said.

The MUMN said that it is clear that the process towards obtaining a “decent” sectoral agreement is going to be a “hard, rough, and dirty road” for the union.

The union said that it was declaring an industrial dispute on the basis of these two issues and called on all nurses and midwives to adhere to directives which will be issued shortly if the two aforementioned issues are not resolved.

 “Without your support MUMN can never obtain a decent sectoral agreement to address the serious shortage of nurses in the country,” the union said.

“MUMN expects also that all nurses and midwives keep adhering to MUMN directives even if a court mandate is issued. The current Permanent Secretary, in the two meetings which MUMN had in his office, kept mentioning court and issuing court mandates. MUMN is ready for all circumstances,” the union concluded.