http://www.ireland.com/newspaper/world/2001/0904/wor7.htm
TURKEY: One of the more painful human sides of Turkey's current economic crisis is to be found outside the Aymosan shoe factory in the eastern area of Istanbul. About 245 workers were laid off without notice on May 3rd, having worked without pay for three months.
Since then, 76 workers have been protesting in shifts outside the factory, demanding first that they be told what is happening to the factory and whether it will be re-opened and, more importantly that they be reinstated in their jobs.
Mr Turan Ekinci, the spokesman at the makeshift camp, says the workers turned up on the morning of May 3rd to find the doors locked.
"Our boss just told us to go away, that our jobs were gone," he says, sitting shaded from the blistering mid-afternoon sunshine.
" 'You are not going to get any money.' They didn't tell us if the factory is going to open again. They didn't tell us anything."
The 76 protestors are members of the Deri-is trade union. One of their long-term aims is full recognition of trade unions and negotiating rights. The country's economic crisis, which has seen a workforce largely unprotected by labour legislation badly hit, began in February. T
he government sent the Turkish lira into freefall then by abandoning the controlled currency regime after three days of market turmoil. The regime had been the centrepiece of an IMF-backed reform-package, and the move sent interest rates soaring to over 5,000 per cent.
In late May the IMF responded with a decision seen by many as a reward for failure with an agreement to extend the country's credit to $19 billion (£16 billion). It makes Turkey the IMF's largest debtor.
The effect, as far as Mr Ekinici is concerned, has been that "one person can come and throw us out and not even talk to us about it".
It also means, he says, that the government is less likely than ever to reform labour legislation, to afford workers the right to join trade unions or indeed to ease the almost total clampdown on any voices of dissent in the country.
Though GDP grew by more than 5 per cent in the first half of last year, unemployment rose from 7.3 per cent in April 1999 to 8.3 per cent in the first quarter of 2000. There is also huge underemployment, with just 47 per cent of the estimated work force actually registered.
According to a Brussells report last year on Turkey's progress towards EU accession, there had been a worrying lack of social dialogue between industry representatives and the government. The area remained a "matter of serious concern".
It also expressed doubts about a law on trade unions in the public sector which is being prepared. It contains provisions curtailing the right to organise in the public sector, to exclude large categories of workers from the right to join a trade union, the possible liquidation of trade unions and to ban trade unions on political grounds.
Though trade unions do exist, they are widely regarded as ineffective talking shops.
"Our struggle is about more than the right to work," reiterates Mr Ekinici. "It is about the right to have free thought in trade unions, to have free talk on rights for the workers. But the more the IMF and the World Bank control our country the more our rights are going backwards."
As his colleagues give a display of their "resistance" song, he adds, "We will protest until we win. It is a struggle and it is difficult when you have family to have no money, but victory will be ours."
http://www.ireland.com/newspaper/world/2001/0904/wor7.htm
===== Kevin Dean Buffalo, NY ICQ: 8616001 http://www.yaysoft.com
__________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Get email alerts & NEW webcam video instant messaging with Yahoo! Messenger http://im.yahoo.com