Turkey: Striking workers fired
Featured image: Striking DEDAŞ workers. Source: Yeni Demokrasi
200 workers in six provinces have been dismissed by the Turkish electricity distribution company DEDAŞ. Yeni Demokrasi reports that the dismissals started after the workers carried out simultaneous strikes on the 21st of July, demanding back their rights, in the provinces of Urfa, Batman, Mardin, Diyarbakır, Siirt and Şırnak. The strikes were mainly aimed at returning the workers rights to unionize, in addition to higher wages, extra pay for overtime, holidays and night shifts, as well as other rights.
In Diyarbakır, Fault-Repair-Maintenance service workers left work and protested at the Provincial Directorate of DEDAŞ. A thousand people from several districts attended the action. The workers demanded their rights and chanted slogans. Police was dispatched against the against the workers. The bosses demanded that the workers sent in representatives to “talk”. The workers rejected this and demanded that they meet with the representatives outside.
In the province of Mardin, there were strikes in the districts of Artuklu and Kızıltepe. The striking workers held a sit-in in front of the DEDAŞ Provincial Directorate in Artuklu for their right to unionize. The workers shouted slogans and stated that if their demands were not met, the protests would grow. In Kızıltepe, striking workers gathered at a square and marched to the DEDAŞ building to express their demands. The striking DEDAŞ workers have also protested with the same demands in the provinces of Siirt, Batman and Urfa.
The next day, the 22nd of July, it was reported that nearly 200 workers were dismissed due to their participation in the strike and the protests in the six provinces. Nearly 50 of the dismissed workers worked in the province of Urfa. A dismissed worker in Urfa said that they had been told to sign a document confirming their dismissal: “The document they wanted us to sign said that our employment contract was terminated due to our actions”. When the workers went to the managers, they had admitted that the workers were fired because of their actions in the protests. It is reported that all the dismissed workers were told to sign similar documents.
The workers have said that they will continue their protests and will not give up on seeking their rights.
DEDAŞ is also known for its systematic policy of power cuts against the poor. A week ago we reported on peasant protests against the company. DEDAŞ had cut the power of whole villages as a collective punishment because some peasants were not able to pay the high electricity bills. The peasants, who were servery affected by the power cuts, built burning barricades of tires, closed roads and protested in front of the DEDAŞ office in Viranşehir, in the province of Urfa in southeastern Turkey. On the 22nd of July Yeni Demokrasi reported that approximately 25 thousand acres of fields can not be irrigated because of electricity cuts in the villages of Taşlık, Kırdirek, Yazır and Soylu in Mardin.
