With messages in favor of the reunification of Cyprus and the demands of the workers, but also Palestine, the bicommunal event of the PEO and T/C trade union organizations for the Labor Day took place on Wednesday morning in Nicosia.
Initially, participants gathered at Eleftheria Square where greetings were given by AKEL Secretary General Stefanos Stefanou and PEO Secretary General Sotiroula Charalambous. A march was then held towards the buffer zone stadium, which was joined by the march of the Turkish Cypriot trade unions DEV-İŞ, KTAMS, KTÖS, KTOEÖS, BES, KOOP-SEN and DAÜ-SEN. This was followed by an artistic program in the Ledra Palace area.
The PEO Secretary-General stated that “the workers, Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots, are sending a clear message this year with our joint May Day event: “We do not accept division.”
“We continue the struggle to improve the lives of workers, pensioners, vulnerable groups, and the younger generation. We demand increases that improve real wages and institutional measures that lead to the implementation of agreed employment conditions by all employers in the sectors covered by the contracts,” added Charalambous.
“The messages from employers’ associations in the discussions on the renewal of the Collective Labor Agreements so far show the insistence on continuing the policy of labor devaluation and deregulation”, noted the General Secretary of the PEO.
“Their continued refusal to accept our proposal for institutional measures to oblige all employers in sectors where contracts exist to implement the basic terms of the contracts is a dynamite to the system of industrial relations in our country,” she said, adding that “the government must also take a stand on this issue.”
Addressing the Government and employers, the PEO Secretary-General stressed that “we will not stand idly by and watch as the subversion of the right to regulated employment conditions through collective labor agreements, which are binding and enforced by those who sign them, continues.”
