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English School teachers call indefinite strike (Update 2)

english school protest
Teachers protesting outside the school earlier this month (Photo Christos Theodorides)

The English School staff announced on Wednesday they would go on an indefinite strike after it emerged that the head of their union, ESSA, who had been suspended by the school’s board, was to be dismissed.

Teaching staff, who have been on strike since last Thursday, marched to the Presidential Palace after their union head was told she would be fired.

Later in the day they announced they would go on an indefinite strike over the “unjust, unacceptable and arbitrary result of the ‘investigative committee’ that was tasked with the ‘disciplinary prosecution’ of the union’s chair, Myrto Hasapopoulou.”

They also said they were tabling a vote of no confidence in the board, and the school’s headmaster and the school management team.

Other trade unions backed the strike while the school’s board has cited a serious administrative offence by the employee as the reason for their actions and refuting accusations of vindictiveness.

Head of ESSA, Hasapopoulou told the Cyprus News Agency she was asked to an informal meeting and was made a proposal that would mean sacrificing her principles.

“I did not accept it, I brought it before the general assembly, to our members, and it was not accepted,” Hasapopoulou said. She added that she was called in shortly afterwards and was handed over a file containing the decision of the investigative committee that said they would suggest her dismissal to the school board. ESSA said the so-called committee was appointed by the headmaster with him and two of his deputies as members.

Tensions rose last week between the staff and the school’s board of management after Hasapopoulou was suspended from her duties for using the school system to send unauthorised correspondence to parents, which led to an impromptu work stoppage for two periods on Thursday which resumed on Monday.

Hasapopoulou said they have been trying to establish dialogue for a long time and that on Monday, when the two sides were discussing their differences at the labour ministry, the staff submitted their positions. These included that Hasapopoulou would resume her teaching duties and for a probe into her alleged misconduct to stop, so that they could start a dialogue, but this was not accepted.

ESSA had originally planned a work stoppage over several disagreements with the board regarding teachers’ contracts and changes to the timetable, with either side accusing the other of refusing to cooperate.

Head of the public secondary education teachers’ union Oelmek, Costas Hadjisavvas, lent his support to the English School’s teaching staff. He said the school’s management and board were behaving “in an authoritarian manner”.

“We wonder if we are in a democracy or if some people think we are still in a colonial regime,” Hadjisavvas said.

He called on the education and labour ministers to intervene.

Peo trade union also condemned the dismissal of the ESSA chairperson seeing “revenge, for reasons of intimidation of the employees in order to bend the struggle that they have started to claim self-evident trade union rights with the main demand being a collective agreement and the abolition of personal contracts.”

Peo said it has already contacted labour minister Zeta Emilianidou calling for her intervention so that this “unacceptable decision” is reversed.

The school board on Wednesday expressed their sorrow for ESSA’s strike action and said it had expressed willingness from the day these measures were announced to hold talks with the staff at the labour ministry.

It added that while the board went to the labour ministry on Monday on the authority’s invitation, ESSA continued the strike.

According to the board, the head of ESSA sent on September 28 a message to all parents of English School pupils, a move that violated personal data and which prompted complaints by recipients. The school then ordered a probe into the incident, suspended the employee in question and notified the data protection commissioner.

The board said that Hasapopoulou’s dismissal was not an act of revenge for her union activities but because she had committed a serious disciplinary offence.

It added that the board has officially sent a letter to ESSA for negotiations as soon as possible.

The employers and industrialists’ federation OEV condemned the strike measures and called on ESSA to lift the measures and enter into dialogue with the school.

The House education committee has also weighed in on the matter and announced it would send a letter to the board and the school’s management to ask for a reversal of the decision to dismiss Hasapopoulou.


You may also want to read: Cheating never gets one far: about the English School industrial dispute


 

 

 

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