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Page context: Home > Solidarity > 2007 Solidarity > Defend sacked Turkish Airlines workers
On 10 January Turkish Airlines (THY) management dismissed 10 ground handling workers working for the airline in Ankara. The sackings came prior to new collective bargaining agreement negotiations.
Airline management claims it sacked these workers because it simply cannot derive benefit from their performance. However, in reality the company is carrying out a cost-cutting exercise to slash staff numbers as well as to intimidate the workforce as a whole.
Soon after the sackings Hava-Is issued a press statement slamming the management claims. In the press statement the union emphasised that after partial privatisation of the company (49 percent of its share are in state’s hands) the cost cutting will only intensify. The sacking of 10 workers in Ankara is a warning that the airline will not hesitate to use the same measures against other sections of its workforce in order to slash staff numbers, cut back on pay and conditions, and employ cheap, contract labour.
On 11 January Hava-Is staged a series of protests against company management in Istanbul, Ankara, Izmir, and Antalya against unfair dismissal of its 10 members.
These protests were just the beginning of a series of demonstrations to draw attention to the sackings. Company management singled out and arbitrarily dismissed these 10 THY workers to intimidate the entire workforce just before the launch of the collective bargaining agreement negotiations.
The ITF-affiliated Turkish Civil Aviation Union (Hava-Is) is calling on all aviation workers and all other working people around the world to defend 10 THY workers against their sackings. It is highly important to defeat such an attempt of intimidation in order to prepare THY workers for the coming struggles which will probably escalate with the collective bargaining negotiations.
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Airline dismisses union leaders in Yemen | Murder of Guatemalan trade unionist | Solidarity with BA cabin crew | Trade union rights at LOT Polish Airlines | Support Tehran bus workers | Support IAM Action Day | Free Mansour Osanloo | Support Workers at TNT Australia | Support National Frozen Foods Workers | Action for Mahmoud Salehi
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