The Ministry of Labor and Social Security fined the United Textile Weaving and Leather Workers Union (BİRTEK-SEN) 1.5 million Turkish Liras. The Ministry claimed that BİRTEK-SEN, which was organized in the textile cloth manufacturing plant Özak Tekstil, forced the workers to resign from the company union Öz İplik-İş that was collaborating with the bosses and imposed a penalty under Article 19 of the Law No. 6356 on Trade Unions and Collective Bargaining Agreements.

Punishment for resisting turning the region into Turkey’s Bangladesh

Commenting on the decision, BİRTEK-SEN Chairman Mehmet Türkmen said that the employer and the yellow union Öz İplik-İş committed this crime. Turkmen said that the justification presented has no material basis and is only a move to punish the resistance. Turkmen noted that the punishment was officially a scandal and underlined that no such punishment had been given to any union so far. He emphasized that a union that organized resistance was being financially undermined.

Turkmen said the punishment was the price of resisting turning Urfa and the region into Turkey’s Bangladesh.

A call to fight together

In the last part of the statement, Türkmen stated that the attack was not only directed against BİRTEK-SEN but also against all workers and unions that raised their voices against the conditions of slavery and said, “If this strong opposition to workers and other unions is not answered with a common and organized reaction, it will pave the way for similar actions against all unions that are not supporters of the government and the boss.”
The persecution of Özak workers, who wanted to exercise their right to choose a union and resisted for their rights, was not sufficient, as the attacks continued.

With repression, bans, and detentions, they could not accept the struggle of our union and Özak workers, And now the Ministry of Labor scandal emerges to collapse our union financially… pic.twitter.com/jTZWIJZsVX
— BIRTEK-SEN (@birlesiktekstil)March 22, 2024

The story of resistance

Öz İplik-İş Union, which has been affiliated with Hak-İş, a government stooge, yellow company union for seven years, is an organized and authorized union at Özak Tekstil. However, during these seven years, injustices such as dismissals without compensation, forced labor for 18-20 hours a day, pressure, mobbing, harassment, and threats against women workers did not end at Özak Tekstil. In the factory, which produced for international brands such as Levi’s, Zara, and Hugo Boss, Öz İplik-İş worked in the human resources department of the factory to suppress the reaction and objections of the workers against these pressures and to intimidate the workers.

As of the beginning of November 2023, Özak workers resigned from Öz İplik-İş and started to organize in BİRTEK-SEN against this oppression, mobbing, slavery, and pro-boss yellow union order in the workplace. In the factory where 700 workers work, more than 500 workers became members of BİRTEK-SEN in a short period of two weeks.

When the memberships began, factory managers and the corrupt union Öz İplik-İş representatives set up persuasion and interrogation rooms inside the plant. Workers were threatened with dismissal. Some women workers were threatened with exposing their private lives and their families. Most recently, a female worker was fired when she did not resign from the union due to these threats and pressures. More than 450 workers started to resist and exercise their rights to choose their union.

On the third day of the resistance, at the boss’s request, the Governor of Urfa imposed a 4-day ban on protests throughout Urfa. On the instructions of the governor, the workers waiting in front of the factory were harshly attacked, and our union leaders were detained.
The governor, the gendarmerie, and the religious leader mufti are on the bosses’ side.

In the following days of the resistance, the Provincial Mufti’s Office, the Chamber of Industry and the Chamber of Commerce administrations, and the ruling party AKP Mayor Zeynel Abidin Beyazgül were also involved in this hostility to workers and pro-bosses of the governor’s office, gendarmerie and police. Even the mosque’s entrance, where workers go daily to pray and meet their sink and toilet needs, was prohibited by the decision of the mufti.

Although it does not fall under the jurisdiction of the labor court, a decision was taken to prohibit actions in the vicinity of the Özak Tekstil factory.

After the 56th day, when it was no longer possible to continue in front of or near the factory in Urfa, the resistance was moved to Istanbul, in front of Özak Holding offices, together with ten volunteer workers.

In Zeytinburnu, where Özak Holding is located, where a resistance tent was set up last week, the district governor’s office banned all protests for a week. On the same day, the resistance moved in front of the Özak Textile factory in Başakşehir/İkitelli. But less than an hour later, the Basaksehir District Governor’s Office also decided to ban it, and the workers and union leaders were detained again.

Almost all workers fired during the resistance process received their annual leave in full with severance and notice payments. The remaining 24 workers filed a lawsuit for reinstatement and union compensation. In its statement, BİRTEK-SEN stated that Özak Tekstil has not given any worker their total due pay so far.

Resistance crossed borders

As a result of the pressure on the international brands that Özak Tekstil produces for, Levi’s was forced to cut orders and announced that it would ultimately cut off its relationship if these rights violations continued and the demands of the workers and the union were not accepted.
If there is no agreement to stop these rights violations and allow workers to return to work, Levi’s will withdraw completely, which will mean the factory closure in Urfa. After the report written by the international independent audit institutions by personally coming to Urfa and meeting with all parties while the resistance continues, the withdrawal of not only Levi’s but also the brands produced by Özak’s factories in Malatya and Istanbul will be on the agenda.

From the Ministry of Labor to the boss

Inspectors from the Turkish Ministry of Labor prepared a report on the process. However, while preparing the report, neither BİRTEK-SEN nor the workers who participated in the resistance were interviewed. In the report, it was written that trade union rights were not violated.
Empowered by the Ministry of Labor report, the boss sent an e-mail that completely blocked the path of dialogue and announced that he did not accept the workers’ demands.

MB Sendika.Org news