Türkiye: Workers occupy mines against privatization as union backlash over contract sell-off grows

Türkiye is witnessing important developments that challenge the decades-long suppression of class struggle by corporations and the state through trade unions.

Sale contracts signed by Genel-İş (affiliated with the Confederation of Progressive Trade Unions of Turkey/DİSK) in various municipalities of Istanbul and İzmir without consultation with workers have caused strong reactions from the general public.

While underground workers at the Chayirkhan Thermal Power Plant occupy the mine, above-ground workers protest for support outside the power plant despite the cold. November 20, 2024 (Photo: Ankara/Nallıhan/ankaiscimeclisi/X))

About 500 miners protesting against the decision to privatize the mining facilities of the Çayırhan Thermal Power Plant in Ankara’s Nallihan district occupied the mine during the morning shift on Wednesday. They were joined by almost all the underground workers of subsequent shifts. Another 1,300 above-ground workers are protesting in support of 800 miners located 350 meters underground in temperatures of minus 5 degrees.

A long-awaited strike by workers in Istanbul’s Kadikoy municipality, which is run by the opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), ended with a sell-out agreement signed by the Genel-Iş union headquarters in a secret agreement with the CHP. administration and without consultation with employees. Just a minute after the strike began, workers received a telephone message that an agreement had been reached.

Following a massive backlash from workers, the elected leadership of General-Istanbul Anatolian Branch No. 1 issued a press statement on Wednesday and announced their resignation.

Branch President Nazan Gevher Çam Ay, who read out a press statement, said: “The branch management, which represents the will of the workers, has again been ignored in Kadıköy Municipality, as it has been several times over the past month. The free collective agreement that we prepared to protect our rights and obtain our rights has once again been reduced to meager wages by the employer and the union through a framework agreement.”

Ay continued: “…we demand the resignation of the Genel-İş headquarters, which has taken cooperation with the employer to a new level. It has lost its meaning for us to be a branch of the union, since they sit on these chairs and ignore the will of the workers. We are resigning as the executive committee of Istanbul Anatolian Branch No. 1. We will continue to fight for workers to get what they deserve and achieve decent living and working conditions.”

Last month, in the districts of Kartal, Maltepe and Ataşehir in Istanbul and Buka in Izmir, collective agreements between the municipalities of TPP and Genel Iş were signed in a similar manner, despite the workers’ determination to fight. The de facto strike of the workers of the municipality of Kartal after the signing of the sale agreement was suppressed by the promise of additional protocols, which is also a ploy of the union.

This shows that the CHP is just as anti-worker and willing to ignore basic democratic rights as President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party (AKP).

The Hizmet-Ish trade union of the Hak-Ish confederation played a similar role in the municipalities under AKP administration. Last month, a total of 27 municipalities in Istanbul, run by various bourgeois parties, introduced collective agreements condemning workers to meager wages.

Although the net salary in these municipalities is only about 30,000 Turkish lira ($870), the poverty line for a family of four, calculated every month by the Turk-Iş Confederation, exceeded 66,000 Turkish lira ($1,900). According to the Istanbul Planning Agency (IPA), which is a branch of the Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality headed by Ekrem Imamoglu of CHP, the cost of living for a family of four in Istanbul has exceeded 71,000 Turkish lira ($2,050).

Moreover, the cost of living continues to reduce the wages and living standards of workers every day. In October, the official annual inflation rate was 48 percent, but the independent body ENAG put it at 89 percent.

Workers must learn the necessary lessons from this experience, which is part of the international process. Trade unions, whether pro-government or pro-bourgeois opposition supported by the pseudo-left, serve companies and the government against the interests of the working class.

Workers must form rank-and-file committees to wrest control of their struggles from the reactionary trade union apparatus, and to protect and improve their living conditions from the ruthless capitalist offensive.

The same can be said about the miners who are waging an inspiring fight in Ankara. The record of the Turkish Mine Workers’ Union (Maden Iş), which now fraudulently claims to be on the side of workers in the face of their militancy, demonstrates the complicity of corporations and the state against the working class. . One of the catastrophic consequences of this was the Soma mine accident in 2014, which killed 301 miners.

This preventable disaster is the result of decades of escalating attacks by the ruling class, through trade unions, on the living and working conditions of workers and disregard for worker safety for the sake of capitalist profit.

A month and a half ago, the privatization of a coal mine in Ankara, where more than 2,000 families make their living, was on the agenda. The tender, which will close on December 4, does not guarantee existing workers’ rights and stipulates that workers’ premises will be evacuated within four months.

Talking to Anka HaberMiner Erdem Ozkurt, 16, said: “If privatization happens, all our colleagues are afraid that they will give up their existing rights. And they will be left alone with dismissal. Some of our friends live in apartments and they could be evicted from their apartment.”

Ilker Ucar, who worked for the same company for 14 years, said: “If this place is sold, we don’t know what will happen next. We don’t know under what conditions the new company will hire us.”

Selçuk Kostak, another miner, commented: “Not a single worker’s fate in the future company is clear, nor whether we will be employed or not, nor what our salary will be. We have 850 apartments. The specification states that in the event of a move, this housing will be vacated within four months; where will 850 families go?”

As a result of privatization, workers face the same risks of layoffs, wage cuts, loss of social rights, and even increased risk of death and injury in hazardous conditions as in other companies.

The Soma Massacre is a horrific example of this. As coal mining costs fell from $140 to $23.80 per ton within a decade of the mine’s privatization, Soma Kumur refused to buy standard security equipment to monitor methane levels. This equipment would have prevented the explosion.

Behind the carnage was a government that decided to privatize the company, ministries that carried out lax safety checks despite a string of accidents, and a union apparatus that suppressed workers’ anger by sitting idly by and watching the events unfold.

The miners in Chayir Khan should form a rank-and-file committee to take the leadership of the struggle into their own hands and seek support from other sections of the working class, especially those working in other mines. The miners will find strong allies among other workers, as well as among municipal employees, doctors and health workers, who went on strike for three days this month and are preparing for a five-day strike in December.

Workers must also link these struggles to the international class struggle. The International Workers’ Alliance of Rank-and-File Committees (IWA-RFC) was formed to unite on this basis struggling workers in all workplaces, industries and countries. We call on miners, municipal employees and other sections of the working class to contact us about setting up a grassroots committee to carry on the struggle independently of the trade union apparatus.