PEO and Turkish Cypriot trade unions organise joint May 1st event

A joint event to celebrate Labour Day is co-organised again this year by the Pancyprian Federation of Labour (PEO) together with Turkish Cypriot trade unions DEV-İŞ, KTAMS, KTÖS, KTOEÖS, BES, KOOP-SEN and DAÜ-SEN.

The event will take place outside the House of Cooperation, opposite the Ledra Palace Hotel, in Nicosia.

The General Secretary of PEO Sotiroula Charalambous said, “We are here again this year to present the main axes of the joint action which for years we have been developing around the international day of struggle and solidarity of workers, Labor Day” during bicommunal press conference.

She said that the Labor Day will be celebrated in particularly difficult conditions for the working class in Cyprus and throughout the world. She emphized the continuation of neoliberalism’s attack against workers’ conquests, at the same time as the intensifying attacks against peace and the genocide committed against the Palestinian people and conditions characterized by the continued division of Cyprus by a prolonged stalemate and by new achievements that lead ever closer to the final partition.

For his part, the president of DEV-İŞ, Koral Asam underlined that May Day is a day of commemoration of workers’ struggles and that with the joint event, trade unions and workers from both communities are sending the message of their common struggle.

PROGRAMME
PEO will hold a preliminary meeting at 10 am in Freedom Square with short speeches by AKEL General Secretary and PEO General Secretary, and then the workers will march towards the Home for Cooperation, where they will meet with Turkish Cypriot workers.

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At the same time, Turkish Cypriot unions in the north will hold a preliminary meeting at the Kyrenia Gate and at 10.30 am they will start marching towards the buffer zone where they will meet with Greek Cypriot workers. Koral Asam reminded the Turkish Cypriots who will attend the event have to pass through the checkpoint in the north and therefore they should have their identity cards with them.

At the meeting point on the Green Line, the unions’ Joint Declaration will be read in both Turkish and Greek, followed by a musical event with the participation of singers Koullis Theodorou and Umut Albayrak.

In the Joint Declaration , the unions emphasized that on this historical day, they commemorate the pioneers of the Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot labor movement, who achieved fundamental gains for the Cypriot working class, with harsh class struggles, in the spirit of internationalism and class solidarity.

Moreover, reiterating that they do not agree with the division of Cyprus ansd asked the two leaders to evaluate the presence of the Personal Representative of the UN Secretary-General in a constructive manner, away from actions that create tension, and to continue the negotiations from where they left off in Crans Montana.