Solidarity to the students and workers in France

‎13/‎12/‎2018

Solidarity to the students and workers in France

The World Federation of Teachers Unions FISE, member of the World Federation of Trade Unions (WFTU) denounces the escalation of state repression by the government of France against the peaceful demonstrations of thousands of workers, students and pupils.

At the same time, FISE expresses its solidarity to the teachers unions, that are members of FISE, the trade unions, the workers and the youth of France that continue their struggle and demand:

Wages and pensions accordant to their needs

Free social security

Measures that stop tax evasion and tax presents – as happened in the case of CICE (100 millions) – to the companies. Reinforcement of the property tax.

Deactivation of any financial criteria in the matters of energy, water, refinement, health, education, transport, telecommunication and postal activity

Limitation of the VAT.

Imidiate decrease of the fuel prices and common prices, set by the state for the whole country

THE SECRETARIAT

Chicago CHARTER CTU TEACHERS ON STRIKE

“Labor Today salutes the great groundbreaking trade union Chicago teachers Union for leading the way —- This time organizing charter school teachers and now leading them in a heroic strike”

By Manny Ramos mramos@suntimes.com
By Alice Yin ayin@suntimes.com
By Lauren FitzPatrick @bylaurenfitz lfitzpatrick@suntimes.com

The historic Acero charter-schools strike is set to enter its second day Wednesday as teachers plan to hit picket lines at Acero’s campuses by 6:30 a.m., the teachers union said late Tuesday.

Then the Chicago Teachers Union will hold a rally at 10 a.m. just before the Chicago Board of Education’s monthly meeting at 42 W. Madison St. Union President Jesse Sharkey plans to discuss the strike during the Chicago Public Schools board meeting at 10:30 a.m.

Picket lines stretched two and a half blocks around Acero’s downtown Chicago headquarters at 209 W Jackson Blvd. on Tuesday as the nation’s first strike by charter-school educators canceled classes for thousands of students.

Acero teachers participating in negotiations said Tuesday that management has refused to make concessions on their key issues of pay, classroom conditions and sanctuary status for students.

“We intend to stay on strike until we receive justice for the people who go to our schools and the people who work at our schools,” Sharkey said. “Know this, we are not going to quit until we get what’s right.”

First-year teacher Amanda Bright said she left her home state of Ohio to work for Acero schools.
“I believed in their mission and vision that was explained to me, which is to help minority students who need it the most,” Bright said. “We are fighting for [our students], we are not getting paid, we don’t want to be here. I would love to be in my classroom right now teaching Algebra 2, but I’m not because we are making sure they are getting the opportunities they deserve.”

Teachers for the Acero charter schools network began picketing Tuesday morning, shutting down 15 government-funded campuses operated by the privately-managed Acero, which used to be known as the UNO Charter School Network. Acero teachers were bolstered by support from the Chicago Teachers Union and national labor leader Randi Weingarten.
About 550 teachers and paraprofessionals aren’t showing up for classes at one of the largest charter networks in Chicago, forcing Acero’s management to close its doors to the 7,500 students enrolled.

Acero leaders encouraged parents to keep their kids at home. The charter network also directed parents to Chicago Park District programs and some YMCA locations. A complete list of school-specific resources was posted on the network’s website.

Teachers and support staff started picketing at 6:30 a.m. at Acero’s VMC/Veterans Memorial Campus, 4248 W. 47th St., whose modern building, housing two schools, had gotten the previous charter management into financial trouble. Continue reading →

Nation’s First Teachers’ Strike at Charter Network Begins in Chicago

NYTimes: Nation’s First Teachers’ Strike at Charter Network Begins in Chicago

By Dana Goldstein  Dec. 4, 2018

Over 500 educators in Chicago began the nation’s first strike at a charter school network on Tuesday, shutting down 15 schools serving more than 7,000 children. Teachers for the Acero Schools network rallied at local schools to call for higher pay and smaller class sizes, among other demands.

The action is the latest mass teacher protest in a year when educators have closed ranks in places where organized labor has historically been weak — first in six conservative or swing states where teachers walked out of classrooms, and now in the charter school sector, where unionization is sparse.

All of the picket lines have formed out of a dispute over public dollars — whether education funding is adequate, and what percentage of the money should go toward educator pay and classroom resources versus other costs.

“Everyone is feeding off each other and hearing this rallying cry,” said Martha Baumgarten, a fifth-grade teacher at Carlos Fuentes Elementary School in the Acero network and a member of her union’s bargaining committee. “A lot of this comes down to lack of funding. But teachers across the country are seeing each other stand up and say that’s not O.K. We’re not going to support budgets and politics as usual.”

Charters are funded by taxpayers but independently managed by nonprofit organizations, like Acero, or by for-profit companies. Educators at Acero earn up to $13,000 less than their counterparts at traditional public schools in Chicago and cannot afford to live comfortably in an increasingly expensive city, according to the Chicago Teachers Union, which represents the striking workers.

Continue reading →

9th National Meeting of Students Militant Front

9th National Meeting of Students Militant Front

 On Sunday, December 2, the 9th National Meeting of the Students Militant Front (MAS) of Greece took place. Hundreds of delegates represented 61 student students University Unions, 4 University departments and 31 Students Committees from Universities from all over Greece and exchanged experience from the militant action of students’ unions. A fruitful and lively discussion on how to rally more student unions, students unionists, to put our own needs in the frontline against the policy of the government of SYRIZA – ANEL, the EU, the monopolies.

The meeting welcomed the Executive Secretariat of PAME which, highlighted among others:

“We have shared many struggles together. For the rights of the working class and its children, for the very future of the new generation of the working class against the black future that the big business groups, bourgeois governments and imperialist organizations such as the EU and NATO want to impose … Such struggles bind the steel of the common action of the workers with the students’ movement.

Within such a struggle, PAME and MAS are defined as genuine poles of defense and fight for the real needs of the working class and the youth. Our common case struggle starts from the belief that this world of barbarism and exploitation can change and will change. “

Photos: https://www.flickr.com/photos/141955787@N05/albums/72157704195179194

 Greece, Athens December 5 2018

Bahrain Education Association: “The worst historical crisis to pursue the teachers and students of Yemen”  

Bahrain Education Association

 “The worst historical crisis to pursue the teachers and students of Yemen”

In solidarity with the Yemeni teacher, who has been living a tragic situation for more than two years, all unions and educational associations affiliated with the Arab Organization for Education and the Bahraini Education Union agreed to make December 1 a day of solidarity with the Yemeni teacher under the slogan ” A humanitarian priority that brings us together. “
The Bahraini Teachers’ Syndicate regrets that more than 200,000 Yemeni teachers and teachers have lost their salaries for more than two years. The situation in Yemen has become a tragic situation for both teachers and students, not to mention the catastrophic situation caused by the destruction of more than 1,600 schools. In the inability of 54 million Yemeni children to attend school since 2017, according to UNICEF reports.
We appeal to international organizations such as the United Nations and Arab entities to open aid funds to alleviate the suffering of Yemeni teachers and their families, many of whom have been forced to leave their jobs and seek alternative employment to support their families. The continuation of this disastrous humanitarian situation threatens to overthrow education in Yemen and paralyze the country’s greatest potential for life and development.
We stand with my teachers in Yemen and salute them in spite of their suffering and catastrophic situation. We ask God Almighty to remove them from them and to facilitate their reasons to overcome this harsh ordeal and to return to their former status, but go beyond the above to the best life and the best work.

Ivory Coast: Syndicats in Education and Job training CISEF-CI

Syndicats in Education and Job training CISEF-CI

Three teachers has been arrested on the 21st of November 2018, in the Ivory Coast, while trying to propagandise the strike on the 20th -21st of November, which was declaired by the coalition of worker syndicates in education and job training COSEF-CI.

The teachers are demanding among other things

upgrade of the housing grant,

increase of the exam supervision payment.

The deposit of the 500k CFA francs for their unpaid wages from January to May 2014.

The Word Federation of Teachers Union FISE, member of PSO supports the requests of the teachers in the Ivory Coast.

It demands the release of the teachers arrested and the fulfillment of their fair requests.

The teachers and the workers worldwide have given many fights and have claimed with their blood the right of strike and the liberty of expressing their ideas freely.

No government and no mechanism can stop the struggles of the working class.

We express our solidarity to you.
THE SECRETARIAT

Οn the occasion of the Day of Solidarity with Palestine 29/11/2018

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In the name of of Allah the Merciful
A statement issued by the trade union union – Palestine on the occasion of the Day of Solidarity with Palestine
O workers and people of Palestine struggling … O our glorious Arab and Islamic masses and all honorable people and workers of the world
In solidarity with our heroic Palestinian people. In light of the increasing calls to stand up to the Zionist imperialist attack on the Palestinian people, we turn to the people of their people to pay tribute to their steadfastness and resistance to the brutal occupation and its criminal tools and to confront the worst settlement project known in history and to confront the most brutal types of weapons as in the wounded Gaza Strip. Declaring that all these forms of siege and crimes will not discourage the people of our people from their will and their struggle and will not stop the determination to continue the struggle and struggle. For freedom, independence, return, self-determination and the establishment of an independent and sovereign Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital.
The trade union coalition, with all its organs and instruments, affirms the right of the Palestinian working class to self-determination and to build themselves as a free and honorable democratic building based on international standards that guaranteed the right of democratic trade union organization away from hegemony from some of the unions supported by the Histadrut. Which calls for normalization with Israel and wants to direct the Palestinian trade union movement to split its ranks, as happened recently at the Marrakech conference in the second half of this year 2018 to a number of Arab formations and unions trying to circumvent the legitimacy Arab Federation of Arab Trade Unions and the World Trade Union Federation in Palestine to prevent WFTU from holding a day of solidarity with Jerusalem on 1/10/2018. The trade union coalition also affirms the adherence to the right of the Palestinian people to continue their resistance and struggle against all deals and liquidation platforms, which are the prelude to the deal of the era that will not pass as long as the will of Shshabna strong and solid.
 The Union of Trade Unions in these days of solidarity with Palestine pays tribute to all the solidarity workers of the world and the free world who stand up and support the struggle of our people, stressing that the day of international solidarity with our people, which falls on the twenty-ninth of November each year and salutes the position of the International Confederation of Arab Trade Unions ICATU WFTU has expressed their solidarity, popular and struggle for a comprehensive strike by all international federations in solidarity with Palestine. We note that these two unions still represent the title of solidarity with the workers and the people of Palestine. We also salute all trade union federations within the framework of the World Confederation of Trade Unions (ITUC) in various continents, which annually hold solidarity activities with Palestine. Where it conducts many solidarity rallies Arab, Islamic and international. Finally, we in the trade union coalition call on all the world’s living forces and all workers in the world to be on 29/11/2018 as a progressive day against all forms of global imperialism headed by the American administration led by the Zionist imperialist leader Donald Trump to assure him that Jerusalem is the capital of Palestine and that it is Islamic It will never be the capital of any occupying entity and the transfer of the embassy is merely an expression of the American administration’s dislike to satisfy and provide security for Israel. And the subsequent Israeli resolutions and laws to Judaize Jerusalem and the law of Jewish nationalism and cut off aid to the Palestinian Authority and stop all forms of aid is a whirlwind will pass as a result of the struggle of the sons of the great Shabana.
Long live the trade union coalition for the workers of Palestine
Long lived the World Confederation of Trade Unions
The International Confederation of Arab Trade Unions (ICFTU) lived
22/11/2018