European Trade Union Committee for Education

The members of the ETUCE Committee convened on 18 to 19 March 2015, situated between the ETUCE mid-term conference and in the run-up to the EI World Congress. Welcoming the new Committee members Lies Van Rompaey, COC Belgium and Claudio Franchi, CGIL, Italy, ETUCE President, Christine Blower, greeted also the new members from Central Asia Maira Amantayeva, Kazakhstan, Nozakova Zulkhiya Zagirdavlatovna, Tajikistan and Asylbek Toktogulov, Kyrgyzstan. She highlighted especially the rotation regarding the Cypriot country seat from Shener Hassan Elcil to Constantinos Constantinou, POED, which marks the commitment of the Cypriot teacher unions to union solidarity in an otherwise politically divided country.

Among the issues on the agenda for discussion and decision in the European Region, featured the ETUCE Strategy on the EI Privatisation and Commercialisation Campaign, which foresees five concrete priorities for ETUCE and its member organisations to act on, e.g. the accountability of governments to provide free quality universal education, the European Semester process as well as trade agreements and the risks they pose to public education. The ETUCE Committee also debated ways to enhance the role of trade unions in professional issues, regarding especially the professional development of teachers and decided that the ETUCE Secretariat should seek EU funding for a project to further the capacity of teacher unions as professional associations.

Praise was given to Martin Rømer, European Director, for his commitment to ensure a better cooperation between ETUC and ETUCE regarding education and training policies, vocational education and training, investments and job creation and training of workers in education. On the basis of this understanding, ETUCE continues its work in the Preparatory Committee for the ETUC Congress.

In addition, the members of the ETUCE Committee acknowledged the work in the European Sectoral Social Dialogue, where ETUCE and EFEE have agreed on a joint position on the contribution of sectoral social dialogue to the strengthening of social dialogue, the joint declaration on supporting early career researchers in higher education in Europa and the joint declaration on school leadership.

Following the advice of the Standing Committee for Higher Education and Research, the ETUCE Committee supported the appeal from the higher education and research unions to defend Europe's scientific, humanities and academic potential and agreed on the call for mobilisation on improving the status of employees in higher education and research in Europe in connection to the Bologna Ministerial Conference to be held in Yerevan, Armenia, on 14 - 15 May 2015.

The ETUCE Committee also adopted the Recommendations on Social Dialogue and Equal Opportunities, proposed by the Standing Committee for Equality which had met on 16 – 17 March 2015.