In Urfa in south-eastern Turkey, the textile producer "Uğur Textile" has fired 300 workers from a factory in one go, using their unionisation as a pretext. In response, the workers held a picket outside the factory gates this morning to return to work unionised.
The company representatives, pressured, then announced talks with the "DİSK" (Confederation of Revolutionary Workers' Unions of Turkey), but still allowed the picket to be harassed by soldiers and gendarmes. A representative of the DİSK stated:
"As part of our three-day struggle against anti-unionism and worker slaughter, we went outside the factory this morning to start a picket action. Again we saw the soldier and gendarmerie barricade in front of us. We learned that the governor of Urfa has ordered not to come near the Uğur textile factory. Ten volunteer workers who participated in the picket said they would not even let our friends wait outside the factory. In other words, they even wanted to prevent the picket, which is our democratic and constitutional right, just because the factory boss is inconvenient. But we along with our fellow workers have declared that we will not leave the factory no matter what, no matter how many tanks and armoured vehicles are brought up even by gendarmes and on-call troops..."
The mass dismissals of workers in Turkey are a result of imperialism's crisis of overproduction, and the example of the Uğur Textile factory, which produces its goods mainly for the "Central European" market, shows how the imperialists' crisis is shifted onto the oppressed nations. The fact that union organising is the only reason for the 300 dismissals is not really credible either.
