Turkey and workers struggle
Turkey: The Working Class
(Literally) Takes the Stage
by Sungur Savran
After at least a decade and a half of stagnation, the working class movement of Turkey is making a great stride forward, thanks to the militant
action of the workers of a now privatised former state economic enterprise,Tekel, the state monopoly of tobacco and alcoholic beverages.
The resolute and tenacious fight put up by the 12,000 Tekel workers and their families
has made an electrifying impact on major sections of the working class.
Despite the dogged resistance of the top bureaucracy of the Türk-Is union
confederation, the biggest of Turkey, to which the Tekel workers’ union is affiliated, the pressure for a general strike is mounting. Given the immense social and political contradictions Turkey has been subject to within the last few years, this new awakening of the proletariat adds still another tension to a society already torn apart by strife and dissension,
but is susceptible to change the whole chemistry of the country and to create the possibility of a progressive resolution to the already existing
problems.
The background to the Tekel conflict is the privatization of the company,
completed in early 2009 despite strong resistance put up by the workers.
British-American Tobacco, the new owners, sacked thousands of workers, who
are now to be transferred to low-wage jobs in the public sector without any
job security.
To many Tekel workers, this means a complete destruction of the standard of life they had built over the years. What they are now
fighting for is the preservation of their wage level and their status as permanent workers. Tekel is a big company whose factories were spread all
around the country. Workers from 43 factories and workplaces from 21 cities
have been putting up a resolutely militant fight in the capital city of Ankara for 38 days now. They are living in makeshift tents outside Türk-Is
headquarters in the freezing cold of winter. A clear sign of their resolution came through during the poll the union took a fortnight ago
(called a “referendum” in Turkish union terminology), asking the workers
whether to go on fighting or to quit. Although the workers had already two dozen days behind them, there was not a single vote to quit among those in Ankara and in the provinces the “go on fighting” vote reached the proportion of 99.6 %!
The timing of the struggle helped raise the solidarity action of the rest
of the proletariat.
For one thing, public employees (who are organised in union confederations of their own) had staged a sector-wide one-day strike
at the end of November.
Since public employees have no right to strike under Turkish legislation, the state tried to persecute some sectors, but
especially state railroads employees started to fight back militantly in action that coincided with the beginning of the Tekel struggle. Other
sectors of workers and public employees, especially firemen in Istanbul,
also joined this new wave of militancy. Soon, unions and workers across the
spectrum were displaying solidarity with the workers of Tekel. Even Türk-Is, whose leadership is divided between a strong right-wing faction
and a minority soft left tendency, had to pay lip service to the heroic
fight of the Tekel workers, declaring, but not consistently implementing,
one-hour work stoppages every Friday.
The government’s intransigent attitude in the initial phase played into the
hands of the Tekel workers.
The ferocious attack by the police (using tear
gas, pressured water and clubs) on the workers on the fourth day of the
struggle created a backlash not only within the working class but also among the people at large. In the face of growing support for the workers,
the government felt it had to make some concessions, but these were
definitely of a token nature. The semi-Islamist (and entirely neoliberal)
AKP government feels it cannot yield to the demands of the Tekel workers
simply because this will have repercussions in other sectors, such as sugar
and energy, where privatizations are in the pipeline.
Click here to continue reading:
http://www.socialistproject.ca/bullet/299.php#continue
Turkey: TEKEL Workers Continue Their Protest in Ankara
The protest of TEKEL workers against the government’s sudden and arbitrary
decision to shut down their workplaces continues into its 7th week the
threat of police violence. Following a three-day sit-down strike, some 100
protesters began a hunger strike on Tuesday, 19 January, and are determined
to continue as long as it takes to get the government to accede to their
demands.
Act Now! – PLEASE CLICK HERE TO SEND A MESSAGE TO THE GOVERNMENT OF TURKEY
AS A MATTER OF URGENCY!
http://www.iuf.org/cgi-bin/campaigns/show_campaign.cgi?c=463
joe hill
