Dilek OMAKLILAR
İzmir
At the Petrol-İş 28th Period General Shop Stewards Assembly, positions were reached on the Flormar resistance, the transfer of severance pay to the fund and the wish to make working people pay the price for the crisis. However, the concluding declaration that emerged is not to the satisfaction of the trade unionists and workers at Aliağa. Saying, “We make the diagnosis but cannot write the prescription,” the shop stewards and trade unionists stress the need to move into action and point to their own responsibilities: “No other trade unionist or anybody else can come and solve our problems. We are the solution.”
The Petrol-İş 28th Period General Representatives Assembly convened on 17-18 November. I joined the union’s Aliağa Branch Chair, branch administrators and shop stewards to mull over this convention and the announcements subsequently made. Indicating that the predominant topics at the convention were the Flormar resistance, the transfer of severance pay to the fund and the wish to make working people pay the price for the crisis, Branch Chair Ahmet Oktay commented, “References to the confederations were made within these three main topics but we, i.e. the confederation-affiliated trade unions, must without fail to be prepared on these issues, rather than the confederations. It has been forgotten that trade unions are not civil society organizations but mass democratic bodies. More to the point, we saw the wish to create forgetfulness of this. We must look at this issue from a class perspective.”
Indicating that Petrol-İş had said the minimum wage should go up to 2,000 TL and pay rise bargaining in the negotiations scheduled for 2019 should focus on upwards of 2,000 TL, Oktay stressed that this position should not just remain talk. Noting that Türk-İş (Confederation of Turkish Trade Unions) Chair Ergün Atalay’s comments and the failure for Türk-İş-affiliated unions to put up a struggle had emboldened the employers, Oktay had the following to say about the discussions over severance pay: “As per the most recent two resolutions passed at the Türk-İş General Assembly, a general strike was to be proclaimed if the transfer of severance pay to the fund was mooted. There was also debate at the shop stewards’ assembly in line with this resolution. On this point, an effective general strike needs to be organized the moment it is mooted without even going to the commissions. Hak-İş (the Confederation of Righteous Trade Unions) is positioning itself in favour of severance pay being transferred to the fund. The task here falls to Türk-İş and DİSK (the Confederation of Progressive Trade Unions). The movement at the base needs to flare up for Türk-İş to move into action.”
Petrol-İş Aliağa Branch Administrator Mevlüt Çınar said, “What differentiates the Aliağa worker from other workers is that the colleagues who come are people who are capable of performing every task that is assigned and this is something that has been acquired through handing down accumulated trade union practices. No other trade unionist or anybody else can come and solve our problems. We are the solution. We will not pick the easy way out and will strive once more to raise people’s consciousness. We must wage an organized struggle. And this comes from education. The solution, the only solution, is to ensure unity of action. The government is combatting the working class in an open manner. In response, we trade unionists must also be prepared to pay the price.”
Petrol-İş Aliağa Branch Administrator Veysel Gündüz said, “The TPAO (Turkish Petroleum Corporation) is one of our parent companies in Turkey. This is our only remaining company that is a parent company. This is a point that is of concern to our four branches but these branches of ours have not addressed this point adequately. A class perspective has vanished. We must address the point of how we can create it. This is the main source of the problem in my view.” Suggesting that there is a need for change in the union’s rulebook, Gündüz continued, “You know of course there is nothing in our rule book about workers committees. We discussed such workers committees and a way for them to be managed suited to their purpose. You cannot do this through duress; you must persuade. We also need to work on the rule book. Workers committees are indispensable for trade unions.”
The PETKİM shop steward, in turn, said that neither self-criticism nor planning for the future was made at the assembly. Recalling the work accident in which the 43-year-old worker named Nihat Abaylı lost his life after an electrical panel overturned onto him during maintenance, the shop steward commented, “When Nihat died, I had come off the morning shift that day and it was obvious there was going to be a work accident. We saw this coming – the subcontractor company’s pressure and rush to get it done. The pressure has lessened a bit following this accident, but it is still there. The question of work safety was not even addressed at the extended committee, either.”
For his part, the TÜPRAŞ shop steward had the following to say: “Today, faced with the political rulership’s sixteen years of attacks on workers, we saw the energy minister on cinevision at the assembly. This is not an acceptable thing. We briefly addressed severance pay being transferred to the fund and work manslaughter. It is normal for distrust of unions to increase among workers who see nothing in practice. We make the diagnosis but cannot write the prescription. Severance pay is coming but what is our action plan? There was the talk of a general strike but how is this to happen - I mean, what are we going to do?”
Another TÜPRAŞ shop steward mentioned the collective labour agreements to be made at TÜPRAŞ and Ravago: “Over this process, we must above all succeed in acting jointly as the four regions within TÜPRAŞ. In fact, if we succeed in this we can get to the place we are striving towards. There must be a collective agreement that compensates for economic losses. All the clauses included there are important for us. There are differences in the collective labour agreements between Ravago and TÜPRAŞ. The weekly working time at Ravago is 45 hours and there is no shift bonus, either. We have two priorities at Ravago. One is to bring the working time down to 40 hours, and the second is that the wages they receive are very low despite them currently working on a shift basis. At TÜPRAŞ, on the other hand, as concerns entry pay, as concerns annual leave and as concerns rise in hourly pay, the collective agreement will revolve around these.”
Translated from Turkish by Tim Drayton.
Bülent Falakaoğlu
Hakkı Özdal
