European Trade Union Committee for Education

Today, on 18 June, education trade unions join the world in celebrating the International Day against Hate Speech. On this occasion, ETUCE and its members raise a red flag about educational institutions and education personnel facing growing challenges in safeguarding inclusive, democratic, and respectful learning environments due to rising polarisation, the rapid spread of disinformation, and the increasing visibility of online hate speech.

In the spirit of the International Day’s message ‘ When diverse voices unite, hate has less room to grow’, ETUCE and EIS joined forces and organised a webinar on Addressing online hate speech and prejudicial disinformation in educational establishments. Bringing together experts from education trade unions and teacher training providers, the webinar discussed the current context of disinformation and online hate speech and what education personnel and trade unionists can do to address this. Selma Augestad from EIS and Scarlet Harris from NEU presented the current context outlining the key definitions of disinformation and hate speech and how they come to affect the young minds and the education personnel, especially with the algorithmic set-ups of the social media. Jordan Daly from Time for Inclusive Education shared several useful strategies and tips for building the counter-speech with learners who are influenced by the disinformation and hate speech, including online games for source-checking and recognizing disinformation and manipulation, the ‘4-questions-test’ and other. Lene Bakkedal from SL (Norway) presented various initiatives that her union has been implementing to support members facing hate speech or extremism, strengthen working conditions and safety at the workplaces, advocate for better regulations and policies on the issues, including the clear employer’s responsibility, and train the education personnel to address the hate speech in the classroom. Reflecting further on the role of education trade unions, Selma Augestad (EIS) presented key principles and examples of the strategic communication and messages to prepare the trade unions representatives in the workplaces and activists to address the prejudices and hate speech with adults.

Please check the recorded webinar here:

ETUCE continues working on building the capacity of education trade unions on promoting democracy and inclusion and will organise an in-person training with ETUI on the topic of democracy on 9-11 December 2026 in Brussels.