The company’s excuses for the dismissals include claims it is being downsized, workers were ‘behaving immorally and viciously’ (grounds for dismissal under Turkey’s labour laws) and drivers were not cleaning their trucks. But workers have a wealth of evidence of managers threatening them over their union activities – in one reported instance, a manager showed a gun to a union member with the threat “if you don’t stop carrying out union activities, you will never find any job in another place".
It appears that MEDLOG is reacting to the growing organising success among its employees of ITF union NAKLİYAT İŞ. NAKLİYAT İŞ has reached the legal threshold of trade union representation and on 6 September applied to the labour ministry to be recognised as the bargaining unit with MEDLOG.
MEDLOG is the inland logistics division in Turkey of global container shipping company MSC. Its 600 workers have no job guarantees and are paid only USD400-500 a month. MEDLOG has a history of not reinstating workers who have won labour rights court cases against it. None of the recently dismissed workers has received compensation.
ITF maritime co-ordinator Jacqueline Smith wrote to MSC president and chief executive officer Diego Aponte: “Based on the good relationship that MSC and the ITF have established over the years, I kindly request MSC to make an urgent intervention to MEDLOG to de-escalate any further conflict towards our union, NAKLİYAT İŞ, and establish a genuine social dialogue with them as soon as possible.”
NAKLİYAT İŞ president Ali Rıza Küçükosmanoğlu commented that the company continued to use these dismissals increasingly as a weapon for stopping the union organising. He said pickets at the company’s branches in Istanbul, Izmir and elsewhere, together with public protests, would continue. He thanked the ITF for its solidarity at this difficult time.
