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19 May, 2008
Two ICEM affiliates in Turkey, Kristal-İş and Lastik-İş, are bracing for industry-wide strikes in the coming weeks due to break-downs in negotiations. The unions have been negotiating with employers’ associations since autumn 2007, but without achieving final resolves.
Salary issues are the main stumbling blocks in both sets of talks.
Kristal-İş, representing glass workers, is now in its twenty-first term of industry negotiations with the Turkish Glass, Cement, and Soil Industry Employers’ Association. The bargaining covers 6,000 workers at 11 plant sites operated by glassware companies Paşabahçe, Trakya Cam, Anadolu Cam, and Cam Elyaf.
All are entities of the Siscam Group, the fast-growing glasswares multinational that has factories in Turkey, Bulgaria, Russia, and Georgia.
After months of stalled negotiations, on 5 May, the last session, the glass association made a miniscule offer covering social bonuses, while failing to put any offer forward regarding salary increases. With no further progress in talks since that date, the Kristal- İş Executive Committee decided on 9 May to pursue strike action.
In the tyre industry, Lastik-İş has been negotiating with three rubber multinationals – Bridgestone Brisa Sabanci, Pirelli Lastikleri, and Goodyear Lastikleri. The talks cover 4,000 workers at four factories in the cities of Izmit and Adapazari.
Some 29 agenda items out of 59 have been concluded in the industry-wide collective talks, but the remainder are at impasse. A recent mediation session did not produce results. The main disagreements cover salaries for new hires, annual paid holidays, the use of temporary workers, and work hours.
Lastik İş is demanding a wage increase of 12% for the first six-month period of a two-year contract, and the Turkish rate of inflation for each six-month period over the remaining 18 months.
The union is also adamant in retaining rights gained in the past 50-year history of collective negotiations, and seeks to exclude industry-proposed rules regarding work flexibility.
The rubber employers’ association has not put forward proposals concerning salaries or social bonuses. The Executive Committee of Lastik-İş, on 8 May, decided to endorse strike action.
While Kristal- İş has not announced a date for it strike to begin, Lastik İş President Abdullah Karacan told the Anatolia News Service that a rubber strike has been set for 31 May. Under Turkey’s Collective Agreements, Strikes, and Lock-outs Law, work stoppages must now occur within a two-month period from the time a petition was submitted. In the past, however, strikes called by both unions were banned by the government because of so-called “national security” issues.
In tyre talks in 2004, a government decree prohibiting an industry-wide strike was overturned by Turkey’s Supreme Court. That fact brought the rubber association to agreeable terms with Lastik- İş.
The ICEM will continue to follow developments and lend unequivocal support to its two affiliates in their respective industry-wide collective talks.
Meanwhile, Petrol- İş, another Turkish affiliate of the ICEM, has taken strike action at Nese Plastics, a company operating in the city of Gebze. Some 141 union members are striking. Negotiations began on 5 December 2007, but management of Nese Plastics has not made a wage offer, insisting on paying current salaries despite high inflation rates in Turkey.