2016 ITUC Global Rights Index - Turkey

Hugo Boss factory continues attacks on textile union: At the beginning of March 2015, the Turkish Union of Textile, Knitting and Clothing Industry Workers (TEKSIF) reported that management at the Hugo Boss factory in Izmir was continuing to sack union members and supporters. The attacks on the union began shortly after it started to organise workers three years earlier.

Long drawn-out court processes proved 20 trade union supporters sacked between 2011 and 2014 had been illegally dismissed. A further eight cases were still pending in court in early 2015. After the High Court of Appeals confirmed that those workers were dismissed by HUGO BOSS because of their union membership and ordered their reinstatement, however, management opted to pay them extra compensation instead.

The sackings didn't stop. Management dismissed three more key union supporters in February 2015. At no stage throughout the process did the Izmir management of HUGO BOSS accept offers from TEKSIF to resolve the issues through social dialogue, and there was no intervention from international management either. When Industriall, the global union to which TEKSIF is affiliated, contacted the HUGO BOSS CEO in August 2014 to request his intervention to ensure an end to the violations and the start of constructive social dialogue at the plant, the response was to threaten legal action and to deny all responsibility.

Leather workers who wanted to join union faced intimidation and dismissal: The handbag manufacturer, SF Leather, which produces mainly for luxury handbag brand Mulberry, sacked fourteen workers for joining the Deriteks union in March 2015. Deriteks had just begun organising workers at the factory, located in the Aegean Free Zone in Izmir.

SF Leather then began suing workers and Deriteks, claiming that its "commercial interests" had been damaged by the union's organising tactics and the workers' protest rallies calling for the reinstatement of their sacked colleagues. The company also got a local court to impound a banner appealing to Mulberry to respect workers' rights, and to order a news blackout of the union protests on Turkish websites. In the meantime, it continued to exert pressure and intimidation over workers not to join the union.

Further to union pressure, including the support of the Industriall global union, SF Leather later announced it would reinstate the dismissed workers – but only on condition that they withdraw their trade union membership. When Deriteks refused this condition, SF Leather launched a smear campaign against the union with fabricated allegations.

Agreement was finally reached between the union and management on 14 October. SF Leather would not reinstate the dismissed workers, but it did agree to pay them compensation. It also agreed to allow the union to organise at the factory, and both sides agreed to drop their court cases (the union had also brought a court case into the rights violations at the factory).

Tear gas and arrests for May Day protesters: Turkish police used water cannon and tear gas on hundreds of protesters on May Day after the demonstrators attempted to march on Taksim Square in central Istanbul.

The Square has symbolic meaning for the Turkish left. Over 30 people were killed in 1977 when suspected nationalists opened fire on May Day participants, and it had become the traditional site for Labour Day celebrations. The Governor of Istanbul announced, however, that Taksim Square would be closed on 1 May, citing security reasons.

Istanbul police decided to deploy around 10,000 officers to enforce the ban, cancelling all leave and bringing in officers from outside the city. It also planned to have water cannon at the ready. All roads leading to the square were closed, as were public transport links surrounding the area.

The May Day Organising Committee, consisting of the Confederation of Progressive Trade Unions (DISK), the Confederation of Public Sector Trade Unions (KESK), the Union of Chambers of Turkish Engineers and Architects (TMMOB) and the Turkish Medical Association (TTB), protested at the decision to block access to the square and urged the authorities to lift the ban, to no avail. They called on union members and the public to go ahead with May Day rallies in the city centre.

The rallies turned into a protest, leading to the use of water cannon and tear gas. The Contemporary Lawyers' Association's (ÇHD) reported that 479 people were detained and 20 people were arrested and charged, some for violating the law on meetings and demonstrations and others for "making propaganda for a terror organisation". Lawyers who later went to the Court House to assist those arrested were beaten by riot police, and 16 of them were injured.

Police disrupt public sector workers march: The police disrupted a march on 3 August 2015 by the Confederation of Public Sector Trade Unions (KESK) members who were on their way to the Labour and Social Security Ministry. Collective bargaining had begun on public servants' wages, but the union wanted the process to be suspended until the interim government had been replaced by a permanent government. Police used teargas and shields to stop the march, but did eventually allow it to continue after it was agreed the demonstrators would remain on the pavement.

Bomb attack on peace march by unions and CSOs: Around 100 people were killed and hundreds injured in two suicide bomb attacks on a rally called by trade unions and civil society organisations in Ankara on 10 October 2015.

A "Work, Peace and Democracy" rally and mass meeting had been organised by four organisations, DISK (Confederation of Progressive Trade Unions), KESK (Confederation of Public Employees), TMMOB (Union of Turkish Cambers of Engineers and Architects) and TTB (Union of Doctors of Turkey).

Two explosions, apparently from suicide bombers, took place in quick succession, as marchers sang and danced and held banners demanding an end to the violence between the Kurdish separatist PKK militants and the Turkish government. The protestors were also calling for the rights of the unemployed and the poor to be respected.

In the aftermath of the bombings, as the survivors rushed to the injured, the security forces blocked access to medical services for the victims, and used teargas to disperse the peaceful demonstration.

The authorities were equally heavy handed in dealing with a planned demonstration three days later to protest at the mass killing. KESK, DISK, TTB and TMMOB wanted to hold a march on 13 October to protest against the bombing and commemorate the victims of the massacre. Permission was refused, however, because the route went through "places citizens use frequently," and because of "the sensibility of the current period."

Police reportedly attacked people trying to reach the planned demonstration routes, and initially refused to allow people to board the Kadıköy-Eminönü ferry between the Asian and European side of the city on the morning of 13 October, on the grounds that the march was illegal. Plainclothes policemen were filmed violently pushing ferry users to the ground in an attempt to detain them. Elsewhere riot police and water cannon were used to deter people from joining the protest.

Protests against the massacre were also held in cities across the country. Police used teargas to attack a group of around 30 lawyers and another 150 people who came to support them in front of the courthouse in the Alanya district of Antalya.