Ei-iE

Latin America

published 6 July 2017 updated 19 July 2017

Latin America

ILO support for teacher union in Ecuador

The Government of Ecuador has been invited by the ILO to “revoke the decision to dissolve the teacher union, Unión Nacional de Educadores(UNE), and to allow the free functioning of the trade union”. This is one of the recommendations from the ILO Committee on the Application of Standards, where implementation by Ecuador of ILO Convention 87 on freedom of association was reviewed.

“The registration of our Executive Board has been refused, the union has been legally dissolved by administrative decree, our offices ransacked and the government has proceeded to sell the union buildings,” said Rosana Palacios, President of UNE, as an EI delegate at the International Labour Conference in Geneva, Switzerland, from 5-17 June. “The government is seeking to destroy the representative teachers’ organisation, and is promoting a parallel organisation called the Teachers’ Network.”

The ILO requested the government in Ecuador to report progress to the Committee of Experts by November 2017.