President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan made statements confessing to the capital representatives at the TOBB (Union of Chambers and Commodity Exchanges of Turkey) Reception Hall that they used the state of emergency against workers' struggle for rights.
Speaking in the first year of the July 15 coup attempt, Erdoğan said, "We are enforcing the state of emergency, so our business world can work better. I am asking, do you have any problem or disruption in your business world? When we came to power, there was the state of emergency too.However, all factories were being threatened by the strike. Remember those days. Do you have anything like that now? On the contrary, we are interfering immediately in the places which are under the threat of strike. We say no, we do not tolerate strikes here because you can not shake our business world."
Academician Özgür Müftüoğlu, who was dismissed from Marmara University with the public order decree, commented on the speech of President Erdoğan. Müftüoğlu, who stated that the democracy and international agreements were, took out together with the state of emergency, saying:"With the state of emergency, rights have been lifted, thousands of people have been dismissed from their jobs. All these implications was presented with a basic justification that there was a coup attempt and, therefore, the national security was threatened. Based on this, Article 15 of the European Convention on Human Rights was suspended. However, it seems clear now that President Erdoğan clearly stated that the main issue here is not the national security of Turkey. The main issue here is that political power wants to maintain its power.
When they have been maintaining their position since 2002, all their politics, actually, was about protecting the capital. Here again, in the same way, it shows that the working class is bound to the interest of the national and international capital. And their rights were totally ignored. They have been fully exploited which is fully supported by the state. There is no reason for the state of emergency. Today we came to the anniversary of the coup attempt. All the policies were applied during this period are policies to support the capital.“ he said.
Müftüoğlu continued with noting that the government's policies supporting the capital were not limited to strike bans, and said: "You know that the law of renting workers has passed, the bosses are constantly incentivized with funds. When we look at the laws and regulations in the period of the state of emergency, we can see that they are all anti-labor, deepening the exploitation even more. The President has been put forward by his own statement that these policies are not related to national security. Here you have to ask: 'Why did you dismiss thousands of people from their jobs?' The government does not only prohibit strikes. At the same time, leaving thousands of people unemployed to silence, to silence the press, to make the academy allegiance. They want to make people to oblige to be more exploited by threatening their job security”
The glass workers whose strike were banned also commented on the speech of President Erdoğan and said: “Today, AKP government labels everyone, who struggle for their rights, as a terrorist. We have also involved with this. The workers who are also AKP and MHP supporters are always terrorists in the eyes of their government. Their discourse has not been a surprise for us either. The government has always been with the capital. Employers gave them all the opportunities. It was obvious from the very beginning that the state of emergency was practiced in order to prevent the struggle for rights. It came out very clearly with the banning of our strikes.
It is understood that the government and the bosses are working together by combining all their strengths. The only thing remained to us here is that we, the workers, can act together. If they can unite for their own interests, we should be able to unite."
The General Electric workers, whose strikes were also banned, expressed their anger by saying, “What did this government give to the workers?", saying: "This government has nothing to do with the workers. They are pro-employer. They have extended the duration of state of emergency. They banned our strike. Taxes were raised. What we get is going to the employers again with the taxes. The transfer of severance pay is on the agenda. And they are looking to take weekends away. What about retirement age? Well, you can retire in the grave.” (EVRENSEL DAILY)
Bülent Falakaoğlu
Hakkı Özdal
