Workers unions in north Cyprus to go on indefinite strike on Monday

Workers in north Cyprus are planing a protest and strikes over the measures taken by authorities to offset the consequences of the depreciation of the Turkish lira.

Employees in the TRNC ‘parliament’ have announced they will go on an indefinite strike as of Monday in protest over measures aimed at tackling the fall in the Turkish Lira which they said greatly affect workers.

Union of secondary education Turkish Cypriot teachers on Wednesday morning held a protest outside ‘parliament’ over the measures.

The union of ‘parliament’ employees, MEC-SEN, said on Tuesday that the latest raise in the prices of petrol and diesel “was the last straw.”

It said that the strike is a reaction to the measures of the ‘government’ to tackle the crisis as, so far, none of the measures introduced are in favour of workers in the public or private sector.

The union said they could not accept for the ‘government’ to request sacrifices only from workers.

Five more unions of the ‘civil service’ have requested a lift of pay cuts for overtime work and threatened to stop working overtime. They also said they would seek legal action against this measure.

Meanwhile, air traffic controllers at the Ercan airport went on a strike on Tuesday evening to stop overtime work.

They said that they were not asked their opinion before the decision was taken for pay cuts for overtime work.