20 March, 2014The Turkish subsidiary of Crown Holdings, Crown Bevcan, dismissed four trade union leaders with false and groundless charges as they had led union organizing at the company plant located in Izmit.
Along with consistent union busting and derecognition in Turkey, Crown dismissed four workers Haluk Efe, Mehmet Akbay, Mustafa Bayram and Ahmet Bal who are members of the local union organizing committee of IndustriALL affiliate Birlesik-Is. In the beginning of March the employer summoned the workers demanding them to write an explanatory note, called a defence document, to the accusations put forward by the management.
The dismissed union leaders were accused of encouraging other workers not to work overtime along with disturbing the peace of the working environment, even though there recently was no overtime work announced inside the workplace. The real reason was the fact that the workers tried to exercise their fundamental right to organize provided by the Turkish Constitution.
All four workers were kept outside the factory while management imposed that they take leave. After the announced period of leave came to an end the management arbitrarily dismissed the workers.
IndustriALL Global Union has immediately reacted to the situation by sending a letter protest to Crown Holdings CEO.
IndustriALL Assistant General Secretary Kemal Özkan pledged support to the dismissed workers and said, ”Crown Holdings proved once again its ugly evil nature where the desire to get profits at any cost prevails. Crown went as far as to trample on national and international legislation not only in Turkey but also in other countries. All of our unions together will stand up and fight for these and other unjustly repressed workers until justice is restored”.
As the shareholders meeting of Crown Holdings is approaching the unions are organizing actions worldwide including reaching out to the customers of Crown revealing the real face of the company.