Turkey: EI/ETUCE Mission to Ankara 27-28 February 2017
Published:
Expressing their continued solidarity with their Turkish colleagues, EI/ETUCE has organised a second mission to Ankara, Turkey. Today and tomorrow, representatives from 11 member organisations from Cyprus, Denmark, France, Germany, Greece, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom are on site. They wish to obtain a first-hand impression of the current situation, as well as an overview of the scope and impact that the application of the emergency decree has on education personnel and citizens in Turkey. Most of all, the aim is to strengthen and reconfirm education trade unions’ solidarity with the Turkish education community.
In the frame of this mission, EI/ETUCE member organisations meet representatives from Eğitim Sen, KESK (the Turkish Confederation of Public Employees' Trade Unions), and dismissed teachers in Turkey.
The mission delegation is led by ETUCE President Christine Blower and the European Director, Susan Flocken. “For every individual teacher who loses a livelihood they also lose access to pensions, social security and health services not just for themselves but for their family. And of course as qualified, permanent teachers are replaced with contract teachers at all levels, the quality of education to which children and young people have access is significantly compromised. Colleagues from Eğitim Sen are pleased to receive delegations as a demonstration of international solidarity but they also need our efforts to put pressure on our own governments to press the Turkish Government to review and change it’s current attitude and policy”, said Christine Blower.
The delegation also has the opportunity to discuss further actions of solidarity with representatives of the Delegation of the European Union to Turkey, ILO, UNICEF and with officials of various embassies in Ankara.
Against the backdrop of the alarming circumstances in Turkey, education trade union delegates at the ETUCE Conference in Belgrade on 5-8 December 2016 unanimously adopted the Resolution "Solidarity with the Turkish education community", reaffirming the commitment to continue supporting the Turkish colleagues.
The outcomes of this mission are to be presented in a report to the ETUCE Committee and EI Executive Board in April 2017.
