All teachers and education support personnel have the right to organise and be part of a union that represents and defends their values and interests. However, around the world, education unions are facing serious attacks and operate in increasingly challenging and hostile environments. Revitalising unions, building their power by boosting membership and active participation and maximising impact is the way forward.
“Dignity and intellectual freedom transcend, like a phoenix, the bars and cells of repression and state tyranny.”
Courageous Colombians defend rights
On July 12th, public servants will take to the streets of Lisbon to protest against recent measures taken by the Portuguese government with a view to undermining labour rights.
Portugal: National demonstration against law that threatens collective bargaining
EI strongly condemned the abduction on 10 July of Mansour Osanloo of the Tehran Workers’ Bus Union, Sherkate Vahed.
Iran: Abduction of the President of the Vahed Bus Driver's Union
A secondary school teacher convicted of “offence against the head of state” has been sentenced to two months in prison and banned from his profession after assigning his students an essay about the indiscretions of a fictional president.
Mali: Teacher banned over essay assignment
Education International joins the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) in calling for the immediate release of a secondary school teacher, a journalist and four editors jailed in Bamako for “offence against the head of state” after the publication of details of a school assignment.
Mali: EI joins the IFJ in calling for the release of imprisoned teacher and journalists
EI asks you to join in the call for the release of three teachers; our Urgent Action Appeal is relaunched in the wake of recent events.
Ethiopia: EI relaunched Urgent Action Appeal as harassment continues and teachers arrested
Mr/Madam President, distinguished delegates
Statement by Bob Harris, Senior Consultant (on behalf of Fred van Leeuwen, EI General Secretary) at the International Labour Conference 12 June 2007
Education International has written again to Meles Zenawi, Prime Minister of Ethiopia, following the re-arrest of Ethiopian Teachers' Association members Antene Getnet and Meqcha Mengistu along with another teacher from the south.
Ethiopia: Harassment continues - ETA members re-arrested
Samual Morales, former teacher and regional president of the Colombian Trade Union Confederation (CUT), has been released after spending 3 years in prison.
Colombia: Teacher trade unionist released after 3 years imprisonment
EI joins the Progressive Teachers Union of Zimbabwe (PTUZ) in mourning the death of founder member and national treasurer MacDonald Mangauzani on 27 May. Reports suggest that he succumbed to internal injuries sustained from brutal torture while in police custody last February.
Zimbabwe: EI mourns death of tortured PTUZ founder