Over-the-Top Unionization Effort

türkçe links to original Turkish article

(Milliyet Newspaper, 29 May 2017)


               We shall overcome (someday).

The Öz İplik Union, part of Hak-İş, decided to try to unionize the
workers at the Beks Sock and Underwear Factory in Çerkezköy,
Tekirdağ.  To accomplish this, union chief Murat İnanç assigned
the task of unionizing the 200 workers at the factory to Thrace
regional chief Mehmet Çakır.

Since Çakır doesn't work at the factory he could not enter the facility
so he resorted to addressing the workers through the fence with a
megaphone during the workers' tea breaks and lunch period.  Beks
took the union to court, as union chief İnanç explained: "when we
called to the workers through the fence with a megaphone Beks hung
a canvas on the fence to prevent this.  Faced with this obstacle, we
hired a winch to raise our organizer Çakır over the canvas.  But now
Çakır has been enjoined by the court from approaching within 100
meters of the factory."

İnanç asserted that the union's megaphone technique had lured many
workers to the union, although 17 of them have now been fired by Beks (!).
İnanç further declared that they have a constitutional right to unionize
and that the court's decision is unconstitutional.