5 May, 2008
Three major Turkish trade union confederations, TÜRK-İŞ (the Confederation of Turkish Trade Unions), DİSK (the Confederation of Progressive Trade Unions), and KESK (the Confederation of Public Employees’ Trade Unions) – all affiliates to both the ITUC and the ETUC – defied the government’s ban on May Day activities last week, and jointly celebrated International Workers’ Day across Istanbul.
The celebration was scheduled to occur at Taksim Square in Istanbul, but heavy police force prevented trade unionists from reaching that point.
Taksim Square is symbolically important to the Turkish trade union movement, because it was there on May Day, 1977, that 37 workers were killed during celebrations. This year’s programme was scheduled to see participants meeting at Şişli at 10h00 with a march to Taksim. At 11h00, they were to lay laid flowers at Taksim Square in a democratic and peaceful way.
Turkish police gassing the headquarters of DİSK in the early morning hours of 1 May
Prior to last Thursday’s event, the presidents of three confederations met with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan to facilitate the demonstrations. But he rejected the peaceful demonstration, and the governor of Istanbul ordered the trade unions not to march to Taksim, with threat of force to prevent the commemoration. But unions carried out street demonstrations across Istanbul instead.
At 06h15 on 1 May, police attacked the headquarters of DİSK, where 1,500 demonstrators were spending the night. Police used pepper spray and red-dye water cannons to disperse the demonstrators. The red-dye water served as a burning agent when combined with the pepper spray.
Trade unionists were hosed with this burning agent, and they soon felt burns and rashes on their skin. Many of them were hospitalised. Later, police were indiscriminate in their beatings of persons on the streets of Istanbul. They also attacked journalists and beat a photo-journalist, breaking his camera which had captured the barbaric brutality of the police.
Nonetheless, thousands of Turkey’s citizens clashed with police in order to enter the historic site of May Day celebrations. Workers, their unions, and the left, turned the entire city of Istanbul into Taksim Square, and the popular slogan became “Each Square in Turkey Becomes Taksim Square.”
Some did manage to get into the square, but not by their own free will. They were moved there through arrests because police “arrest vehicles” were parked in the square. Those arrested were beaten unmercifully. Reports cited that over 530 were arrested, but because many of those detained were not processed, the numbers were many times higher.
May Day 2008 in Turkey has come and gone, but the events of that day in Istanbul lead us to think seriously about trade union rights and freedom of association in Turkey. This is crucial, as the country prepares for membership negotiations with the European Union.
In his protest message over last week’s government repression of workers to Turkish Prime Minister Erdoğan, ICEM General Secretary Manfred Warda said, “Turkey does not deserve such a picture. On the eve of integration with the EU, your policy and the behaviour of your government and security forces is not acceptable. We vehemently protest and urge you to take the necessary steps in order to adhere to freedom of association and basic trade union rights that in line with the fundamental ILO conventions.”