Women in solidarity action call on Barutçu Tekstil boss: Reinstate laid-off workers

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"It was even a problem for us to go to the toilet," she says. "They would ask why did you stay so long in the toilet."

A worker is in front of me, not tired but upset, Elif Varol.

She was laid off from Barutçu Tekstil, a textile factory in Bursa because she joined the Öz İplik-İş Union. She is in a sit-in since that day together with her nine friends.

Today (February 3, Friday) is the 111th day of their sit-in.

The company claims to have laid off the workers not because they unionized but because they downsize or because of their errors as it is in almost all similar cases.

Elif is asking, "If the reason is not unionization, why were we laid off only two days after we joined a union from this factory where we worked for so many years?"

Today is a little different from the other days of the sit-in. It is as if there is a festival. Even though in front of this factory many workers and their children had to go to the hospital when the factory managers brought a vehicle full of chemicals and left it where the workers gathered without any covers on the containers.

We ask security about the "vehicle with chemicals" and they reply that it is a routine practice.

And the first visitors of the workers arrive from İstanbul. Women from the Feminist Rebel Against Poverty group arrive. They chant "the women workers of Barutçu are not alone."

All dance halay and chant "Reinstate the laid-off workers."

Ezgi Karakuş reads the statement to the press that underlines that Barutçu Tekstil, which mentions freedom to organize in its company policy documents, tries to check if the workers are members of a union regularly. Not only that but the company has laid off the workers who joined the Öz İplik-İş union and committed a crime.

In Barutçu Tekstil although the vast majority of workers are women, the foremen are men," says Karakuş. The men are given easier tasks while the women are given the most difficult ones. One has to keep track of 12 benches. Workers are forced to do overtime continuously and involuntarily. They start at 6:30 am. but they are not even allowed to have lunch. They only have half an hour's break. The Barutçu Tekstil boss checks the bags of women workers, and violates their rights in many other ways."

Although the law obliges Barutçu Tekstil to have a daycare at the factory, this obligation is not met.

The sit-in action of the Barutçu Tekstil workers continues on its 111th day and they are demanding that they are reinstated and that the employer should recognize the union. (EMK/PE)