Collective agreements are negotiated between an employer or its representatives on one side, and the union representing the category of employees. These are just the two main actors involved in negotiations but both actors know well that there are many others who are not involved in negotiations but are eagle-eyed about proceedings.

Negotiations are never held in a vacuum and the power in negotiations depends on the actions of the two parties, whether within the negotiations' unwritten rules or beyond. The main factor guiding the process is trust, or at better the perceived trust of both parties. A breach of trust from one of the negotiators often affects the course of negotiations leading to a public power struggle, which shifts decisions away from the negotiations table.

In the past years we have seen many instances where trust was breached during negotiations by having 'leaked information' reaching media outlets. The latest breach was the leak of the financial proposal tabled by UMASA, the union representing lecturing grades at the University of Malta. It was not just a leak of information, say by someone who happened to get hold of some documentation related to negotiations.

It was a strategic leak - a leak during a sensitive period when both negotiators were involved in intensive discussions on the financial package. It was also a selective leak. The average financials or the percentage increases proposed by the parties could have been leaked. Instead, the highest possible salary proposal was leaked, clearly to put the negotiating union in bad light with the general public. Whether figures leaked were correct or otherwise was not confirmed but it is beyond the point. The point is instead that there is an arm-twisting strategy aimed to discredit a trade union by publishing raw figures out of any context for public consumption.

Worse than that, a media analysis was carried out by comparing the said financial proposals with salaries of other unrelated high-ranking officials in government - a clear attempt to discredit the role of  academics by portraying them as undeserving of the proposed rise. As expected, this gave rise to public comments by a section of the general public that in essence accused the negotiating union of being too greedy.

No one spoke publicly that the leak is nothing but a strategy to get the union to conform to the government's proposals. No one spoke about the breach of trust in negotiations. The leak must also be seen in a context. And the context includes the statements made by the government some time ago claiming that the University must address its huge debts - about which the University Rector replied publicly that debts were due to the government's failure to increase the funding of the University to cover collective agreement increases agreed upon by the same government.

Collective negotiations are complicated but once there is a breach of trust through arm-twisting strategies, discussions are derailed and become extremely difficult to manage. Despite being opinionated, the general public is not privy about the context of negotiations and no one can judge the position of one party or another without having the exact context.

Whilst we are embarking on a 25-year vision through Malta Vision 2050, we are seeing a government which is still failing to uphold its highest educational institution by upgrading the conditions of its educators. Academics at the University of Malta deserve our full support for both their work and for their claims to have improved conditions.

Marco Bonnici is President of the Malta union of Teachers