Wednesday, March 15, 2017

Education International calls for increased solidarity with Egitim Sen and Turkish and Kurdish educational workers---AFT and NEA should show solidarity with the Egitim Sen union


From Education International:

A 20-strong delegation of representatives from education unions from the European region, led and organised by Education International (EI) and its European regional office (ETUCE) has travelled to Turkey to show support to its members on the ground and condemn the political repression and unruly dismissals of thousands of teachers by the government. According to Egitim Sen, EI’s national affiliate, more than 105,000 public servants, including 37,000 teachers, have been either dismissed or suspended since the government resorted to repression after the failed coup of July 2016. The union reports to have lost more than 1500 members...

...Education International will relaunch its solidarity fund with 65,000 euro in order to support Egitim Sen and individual teachers in their legal battle. The government’s attacks have been a strategic and heavy blow to the union, according to its leadership: of the 1,500 dismissed members of the union, 103 are were executive board members of the union in its different regions, and 16 general secretaries of local branches, among whom the current general secretary of Egitim Sen, Mesut Firat. The solidarity fund will cover their legal support for appeals and livelihood.

Read the entire article here.

Egitim Sen is a great union---militant, democratic, based in the peoples' struggles, and doing the hard work of educating young people under conditions of war and crises. We hope that teachers' unions in the United States will show active solidarity with Egitim Sen and provide resources and send delegations of members to Turkey and to North Kurdistan for fact-finding and solidarity visits.   

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