Organising teaching: Developing the power of the profession
Bir Sen membership. This patronage extends into virtually every aspect of the school system. During the ‘consultations’ over the ‘4+’ policy, Eğitim Bir Sen acted as a supporter and advocate for the proposed policy, whilst Eğitim-Sen was consistently marginalised from discussions. Eğitim-Sen’s opposition to government policies and its support for Turkey’s Kurdish population have brought many negative responses from government. Long before the coup and the State of Emergency, many Eğitim-Sen leaders had been arrested and tried because of their support for the rights of the Kurdish population (Kutan and Novelli, 2010). Many have served prison sentences and some have been forced to seek asylum in other countries. Following the coup, thousands of Eğitim-Sen members were suspended and hundreds dismissed (at the time of this study visit, 10,000 Eğitim-Sen members had been suspended and 781 had been dismissed). These were dismissed by decrees published on a government website. No explanation was given, no evidence was provided, and no appeal was available. In this study, several interviewees identified a threat to the future existence of the union, believing the government would, at some point in the future, draw on spurious reasons to impose a ban. Research interviewees included dismissed and suspended teachers/ academics. One academic at Ankara University, a signatory to the ‘Academics for Peace’8 petition that was critical of government policy towards the Kurdish population, said he had lived through periods of dictatorship and had joined the union when it was illegal: ‘But things were never as bad as they are now.’ When interviewed in December 2016, the academic was still in work. However, he said, “I am under investigation. I will be dismissed”. On 7 February 2017, he was dismissed in a State of Emergency decree published in the Official Gazette9. He cannot work again in Turkey, and the State of Emergency restrictions prevent him leaving the country. Under the current regime, his academic career is over. His parting words to this study’s researchers were: ‘We will win. They attack us, but we will come back.’
Union strategies: In contrast to the other cases in this study, the case of Eğitim-Sen cannot be presented as a case of union renewal. The union does not have the opportunity to revitalise itself in the face of future challenges because it faces an immediate threat to its existence from an authoritarian and undemocratic government. In the face of this fundamental threat, it must depend on the most basic trade union principles – organising and solidarity.
8 See - https://barisicinakademisyenler.net/English 9 See - https://barisicinakademisyenler.net/node/427
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