Workers' Day to be celebrated in Taksim square, unions
Workers' Day to be celebrated in Taksim square, unions
In a press statement on Workers’ Day on 1 May, the Confederation of Revolutionary Workers Unions (DISK), Confederation of Public Workers Unions (KESK), Union of Chambers of Turkish Engineers and Architects (TMMOB) and Turkish Medical Association (TTB) announced that they will celebrate the day in Taksim Square in Istanbul which has been a symbol area of May Day since 34 people were killed and hundreds were wounded in the area in 1977.
The joint press statement on behalf of labor and trade bodies was read by DISK General President Erol Ekici who remarked that the May Day of this year coincides with a process of new attacks targeting acquired rights of labor in Turkey.
Ekici in this respect pointed out to the recent amendments such as the gradually revocation of benefit severance, the change of Private Employment Offices into offices of slavery, regional minimum wage application and reduction of minimum wage, plans for generalizing subcontracting, flexibility, insecure and irregular working, prohibitions of strikes and prohibitive law on trade unions.
Ekici also called attention to the increase in murders related to work within the process of AKP government which –he underlined- has imposed anti-democratic conditions of working and living on public workers besides adopting compelling, repressive and retrogressive legal amendments in the area of education as well.
DISK General President continued as follows; “We have been feeling the scares of a state government which intends to prevent all kinds of efforts and struggles for acquiring rights by means of pressure and violence, maintains isolation practices in prisons, depredates our cities under the cover of urban transformation, depredates the environment for profit, commercializes the areas of health and education, expands the midset which extends women’s murder, arrests journalists and unionists and imposes pressure and force.”
Ekici continued remarking that democratic demands of the Kurdish people are ignored by means of pressure and arrests and added the followings; “To create the broadest togetherness on May Day of 2012, we will be in all areas, in Taksim Square in particular, with all victims, the poor, the excluded, the unemployed, laborers, public workers, architects, engineers, intellectuals, women, young people, retirees and press workers at four sides of the country. We will turn the areas to platforms where millions will demand justice.”
The joint press statement on behalf of labor and trade bodies was read by DISK General President Erol Ekici who remarked that the May Day of this year coincides with a process of new attacks targeting acquired rights of labor in Turkey.
Ekici in this respect pointed out to the recent amendments such as the gradually revocation of benefit severance, the change of Private Employment Offices into offices of slavery, regional minimum wage application and reduction of minimum wage, plans for generalizing subcontracting, flexibility, insecure and irregular working, prohibitions of strikes and prohibitive law on trade unions.
Ekici also called attention to the increase in murders related to work within the process of AKP government which –he underlined- has imposed anti-democratic conditions of working and living on public workers besides adopting compelling, repressive and retrogressive legal amendments in the area of education as well.
DISK General President continued as follows; “We have been feeling the scares of a state government which intends to prevent all kinds of efforts and struggles for acquiring rights by means of pressure and violence, maintains isolation practices in prisons, depredates our cities under the cover of urban transformation, depredates the environment for profit, commercializes the areas of health and education, expands the midset which extends women’s murder, arrests journalists and unionists and imposes pressure and force.”
Ekici continued remarking that democratic demands of the Kurdish people are ignored by means of pressure and arrests and added the followings; “To create the broadest togetherness on May Day of 2012, we will be in all areas, in Taksim Square in particular, with all victims, the poor, the excluded, the unemployed, laborers, public workers, architects, engineers, intellectuals, women, young people, retirees and press workers at four sides of the country. We will turn the areas to platforms where millions will demand justice.”
