Correction of the death toll in Turkish Shipyards

national | worker & community struggles and protests | news report Monday June 09, 2008 09:51 by Sevinch Karaca - WOrkers Solidarity Movement/Irland-Personal capacity nazire.sevinc at gmail dot com

97 Killed in workplace accidents in Turkish Shipyards

35 Years old Ihsan Turman was the latest to be killed in the Shipyards who crushed to death on Sunday 8th of June by a metal cover weighing half a ton

Turkish National Shipyard Workers go on strike on 16th of June to stop workplace deaths in Tuzla, near Istanbul in Turkey.

Latest worker who was killed in the shipyards was 35 years old Ihsan Turman crushed to death under a cover piece weighing half a ton on Sunday, 8th of June. There had been 19 deaths since the Minister of Employment and Social Security promised the issue was going to be handled by the ministry and the workers would be listened to on 8th of September last and 97 in total in the last 5 years since the jobs were handed over to the subcontractors as part of government's privatization programme..

Limter-Is, the main union on the site, . Tib-der (shipyard workers' unity association and the Shipyard Workers' Council called for an open ended national strike to stop work place deaths in the shipyards due to the lack of safety equipment and reckless and arrogant disregard to safety regulations which is shown by the shipyard management, subcontractors and the Ministry authorities. Limter-is (the union) has 1360 members in the documented 17500 workers in the shipyards, but the real number is probably between 40 and 50 thousand, their press declarations generally do not include more than 100 workers, however, they also organized marches with up to 5 thousand workers in the last decade (1) . Tib-der is more like a socio-political organization rather than a union(2). The workers went on a two days strike action end of February after 5 deaths in that month alone. The fascist religious government and the national media remained silent on the deaths until they were confronted with further organized action, protest by the families of the deceased workers and huge national and international support. 70 workers were arrested and one worker was run over by a car belonging to one of the subcontractors in February. The police not only arrested the workers and all properties of the Limter-Is was confiscated by the police and union officials were arrested as well. The “not so media savvy” representatives of the subcontractors, who are responsible for these deaths, placed the blame on workers with idiotic conspiracy theories. The government backed right wing union appeared on the site after years of silence on the deaths to distribute membership forms and sat at the meeting with the minister and the representatives of the Association of Shipyard Subcontractors, a shady unheard group.

Workers in Turkey face tremendous pressure to make demands for basic workers' rights such as workplace safety, job security and better pay for a minimum standard of living. They face arrests, lock-outs and losing their jobs. The shipyard workers are taking this action to stop deaths face death themselves. Two officials and activist of the Turkish Syndicate of Transport workers TÜMTIS, were among the hundreds who were arrested during the May Day celebration this year in Istanbul. the shipyard workers are just the head of the iceberg. according to the official statistics more than a thousand workers die in turkey. this number does not include the deaths due to professional diseases. There is not a system to count or treat them. According to the world statistics these diseases kill five times more than the work accidents, so the real death toll for the working class of turkey is about six thousand a year (3).

(1, 2 and 3) by Ender http://www.anarkismo.net/newswire.php?story_id=9086

For messages of support and solidarity, fundraise events for the families of the killed workers and the workers who are going on strike on the 16th of june contact:
http://www.16haziran.org
info@16haziran.org
16hazirangrevi@gmail.com
disk@disk.org.tr,
limteris@gmail.com,
posta@tersaneiscikurulu.org (The Council). Please spread the word.

Author of this piece will be happy to translate messages for the workers (max. 200 words please, she is swamped!)