Education minister takes court action against public sector strike
Education Minister Niki Kerameus has petitioned an Athens court to declare a 24-hour public sector strike scheduled for Wednesday illegal, arguing that it will hamper the process of national university entrance exams.
“The right to strike is respected completely and established. But it cannot and must not jeopardize a crucial process that will determine the future of more than 100,000 [university] candidates,” she said in her complaint, filed on Tuesday, a day after exams got under way across the country.
Kerameus argued that Wednesday’s strike will have an impact on the process across a range of services, from the employees at the Education Ministry involved in the exams and exam supervisors, to the public transportation used by candidates to get to and from the exam venues.
“It is our duty to protect our candidates from any disturbances at the peak of their endeavors in these unprecedented pandemic circumstances,” Kerameus said, appealing to “all political and social groups to rally behind this cause.”
The OLME union of secondary education employees, meanwhile, is waiting for a response from the ADEDY civil sector’s umbrella union to a request to be exempted from Wednesday’s action.
