Turkish Tobacco Workers Close to Victory

Source from:  Tobacco Reporter 02/02/2010

Tobacco workers in Turkey are on the verge of victory over the government after an industrial dispute sparked by the ruling Justice and Development party's announcement of the closure of 12 Tekel factories, according to a story by Robert Tait for The Guardian. Tekel was sold to British American Tobacco in June 2008. About 12,000 workers reacted after learning they would be redeployed in temporary public sector jobs on reduced pay and conditions. They said the changes would cut their monthly wages by more than 40 per cent and leave them without any severance pay. The Prime Minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, at first confronted the workers but was forced into a climb-down after Turkey's main trade union organisation, Turk-Is, said it would call a general strike next unless the workers' demands for jobs with equal pay and conditions were met. At a meeting with Turk-Is leaders and Tekel workers' representatives on Thursday, the prime minister ordered the finance minister, Mehmet Simsek, and the labor minister, Hayati Yazici, to find a formula to resolve the dispute by today. Enditem