Issues such as mass worker dismissals at the Aliağa refinery in Turkey as well as investigations against the General President of DISK, Arzu Çerkezoğlu and other KESK members (both being large confederations of labor unions) and the detention of Umar Karatepe who is the Communication Manager at DISK were mentioned in the ITCU report.
The International Trade Union Confederation ITUC shows Turkey is in the worst 10 countries for the workers.
The 2019 ITUC Global Rights Index published annually by the ITUC shows Turkey is in the worst 10 countries for union organizing and workers’ rights. The Index shows the workers facing murder as the top reason for this low ranking as well as crackdown on strikes and mass dismissals and discrimination.
The report indicates that the violations against the workers’ organizational efforts has worsened as these violations are recorded from April to March each year and each country is ranked according to a list of 97 indicators. These indicators are obtained from ILO conventions and jurisprudence and represent violations of workers’ rights in law and practice.
The report included Zimbabwe for the first time but had the “usual” participants such as Saudi Arabia, Colombia, Guatemala and the Philippines.
There were 144 countries that were assessed for the 2019 report. The trend for the last 7 years is shown to be going from bad to worse for the workers where violations of workers’ rights eroded each year.
Middle East and North Africa proved continuation of attacks against worker rights in 2020. In countries like Bolivia, Chile, Iran and Iraq efforts to unionize were attacked. In places like Egypt and Honduras collective bargaining rights were violated and the worker representatives were fired from their jobs.
The freedom of expression was suppressed, the report indicates, in Turkey and Hong Kong and the unionists were arrested in Turkey, Indonesia and South Korea.
Issues such as mass worker dismissals at the Aliağa refinery in Turkey as well as investigations against the General President of DISK, Arzu Çerkezoğlu and other KESK members (both being large confederations of labor unions) and the detention of Umar Karatepe who is the Communication Manager at DISK were mentioned in the ITCU report.
The report can be accessed at:
https://survey.ituc-csi.org/ITUC-Global-Rights-Index.html?lang=en
Sendika.org news (M.B.)