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14 August, 2005ICEM News release No. 06/2004
S ome 5,000 union members of ICEM affiliate Kristal-İş in Turkey shut down the country's glass industry last week following a Turkish Supreme Court ruling lifting the government's decree that a strike to the glass sector is a threat to national security.
Kristal-İş struck 13 glass plants on 30 January, effectively curtailing 90% of Turkey's glass production. Pasabahce and its holding company, the Sisecam Group, operate the majority of the plants. The firm, together with the Glass, Cement and Clay Products Industry Employers' Association, has waged a systematic campaign to destroy Kristal-İş.
"The ICEM pledges to take all necessary steps to support our Turkish colleagues in this struggle," stated ICEM General Secretary Fred Higgs. "We also call on management to recognise the legitimacy of Kristal-İş and to immediately commence meaningful collective bargaining to resolve the issues."
Chief among issues are pay and a Kristal-İş demand that 350 union members in Eskisehir, Turkey, be reinstated after being sacked last September by Pasabahce. The fired workers were identified as union activists who led 700 workers at a four-year-old plant in Eskisehir to become Kristal-İş members.
The glass industry and Pasabahce have challenged the union's right to representation under the 10% rule of Turkish labour code, meaning a union must have at least 10% membership in a given sector to have collective bargaining status. But Turkish courts have ruled against the 10% challenge, with the union proving it has legitimate membership in 13 of 15 Turkish glass factories.
But industry has continued to stonewall Kristal-İş, both through stalled bargaining toward a new collective agreement and in retaliatory measures such as what occurred in Eskisehir when workers sought union representation from Kristal-İş.
Following union notification in November of its intent the strike, the government of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan issued a decree under Article 33 of Turkey's Law on Collective Agreements, Strikes and Lockouts to prohibit a glass strike on the grounds it would be a threat to national security.
Kristal-İş took the matter to the Supreme Court and in late January the court overruled the government's decree.
Kristal-İş President Mustafa Bagceci emphasized that it is Pasabahce and the glass industry "who do not respect the rights of workers" that are responsible for the strike. He added that Kristal-İş is ready to make "a fair compromise based on mutual goodwill and respect for basic workers' rights" to end the strike.