ANKARA - Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan received on Monday John Monks, the Secretary General of European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC).
Chairmen of some Turkish labor unions were the other participants of the meeting.
After the meeting, Monks told reporters that their confederation would also express views about Turkey's European Union (EU) accession, and said that he told PM Erdogan that Turkey had to make some more progress in areas like democracy, trade union and labor rights, to get rid of their reservations.
Monks stated that they supported Turkey's EU membership bid, and listed right to strike for civil servants, collective bargaining law, health and social security, protection of minorities and equal treatment, as well as fulfillment of standards of International Labor Organization (ILO) and EU among the changes they wanted Turkey to make during its EU accession process.
ETUC Secretary General Monks added that he also recommended Turkish government to cooperate with Turkish confederations during its negotiation process with the EU.
(BRC-ULG) 02.11.2004