Union busting in Turkey

IndustriALL Global Union affiliate Petrol-İş successfully organized the required majority of Japanese company YKK's approximately 670 workers at their plant outside of Istanbul, and received official majority certification from the Ministry of Labour and Social Security on 21 May.

However, instead of engaging with the union, YKK management responded with union-busting, including threats and coercion to force union members to resign. These actions are in blatant disregard for national legislation as well as the company's own code of conduct, which explicitly claims to "respect the basic rights of employees, which include the freedom of association and the right to collective bargaining."

And yet YKK is systematically refusing to engage in dialogue with Petrol-İş' ,the authorized bargaining agent.

Petrol-İş president Süleyman Akyüz says:

"Petrol-İş has organized workers at YKK, and has called on the company management to conclude a collective agreement. The company's local management objection to engage with the union is a clear violation and deterioration of workers' rights."

Petrol-İş' demands, supported by IndustriALL, are for the management to:

• Stop pressuring Petrol-İş' members
• Engage in social dialogue with Petrol-İş as the representative organ of the workers
• Start the collective bargaining process

Petrol-İş general organizing and education secretary Niyazi Recepkethüda underlines that:

"Rejecting dialogue with the union is union busting and a clear violation of trade union rights, which we cannot accept. Petrol-İş' members at YKK deserve to have a CBA with the company after a long organizing effort. We call again on management to respect the wokers' rights."

In a letter to YKK, IndustriALL general secretary Atle Høie urges the company to stop anti-union practices and to respect workers' freedom of association in Türkiye:

"We urge YKK to abide strictly by fundamental international labour standards in respecting workers' fundamental rights, particularly freedom of association and the right to collective bargaining and we equally urge YKK's Turkish management to contact Petrol-İş immediately to commence the process to set a first collective bargaining agreement."

Photo credit: Petrol-İş