content tagged with right to unionize

Put on unpaid leave by a small home appliance factory in İstanbul, six workers have returned to work. Workers have announced that the Ministry sent an inspector to the factory and all their receivables since the first day of the leave have been paid.

More than 80 workers have been dismissed from the Ekmekçioğulları Metal Factory in Çorum province on the day when the United Metal Workers’ Union was granted the right to represent workers by the Ministry of Family, Labor and Social Services.

Dismissed without severance pay or put on unpaid leave due to their union activities and briefly detained yesterday as they wanted to march to Ankara, metal workers from three factories in Kocaeli have set off for the capital city.

Taken into custody by the police when they attempted to march from Kocaeli province to Ankara to protest metal workers’ dismissal without severance pay and forced unpaid leave, 109 people have been released from detention.

Police attacked metal workers’ march from Kocaeli to the capital city. Demanding their right to unionize, workers staged a sit-in protest in front of the office of United Metal Workers’ Union. Police took the detained to the security office in municipality busses.

Today and tomorrow mark the 50th anniversary of “June 15-16 Great Worker Resistance” in Turkey. But what happened on June 15-16, 1970? Why is it so important that it is still marked today? Here is a brief look at its background and aftermath.

Seven workers who were dismissed from İzmir TARİŞ factory for unionizing and labor union executives who protested the dismissals have been each sentenced to 1 year and 3 months in prison on charge of “deprivation of liberty.”