PAME, a member of the WFTU, expresses its solidarity with KOD-A employees in Turkey who are in protest for their right to trade union organization and Collective Agreement.

KOD-A’s employers exploit the anti-labor legislation in Turkey to prevent workers from being organized and collectively demand. After the workers succeeded, with the help of SOSYAL IS Union, to organize 40% of the company’s employees (which, according to the law, is required to claim a Collective Agreement), the employers filed a complaint with the Ministry of Labor against the employees. Irrespective of whether or not the reasons invoked by the employer are based, the law stops the establishment of the trade union organization for a period of 1.5 to 2 years. In this way, employers are gaining time and going to layoffs of militant workers and take other measures, hitting the organization that employees have achieved. In this way, even if the trade union and workers’ rights are recognized after two years, employers will have already blocked workers, so as not to claim a collective agreement and improve wages and working conditions.

Employers and the governments serving them in each country attack trade union rights for collective organization and action of employees to ensure the profitability of business groups.

Against the attack of governments and employers, the workers we have the weapon of Solidarity and Collective Action

We express our Solidarity to our colleagues of KOD-A in their fair struggle. We support their rightful demands for re-establishment of the dismissed, stopping the attack on the trade union, starting negotiations for the signing of a Collective Agreement.