The workers who have fought for months against work-related accidents leading to death under the leadership of the union Limter-Is , which follows a militant line of the class at the shipyards Tuzla, Istanbul, have suceeded in making the bosses` organisation GISBIR accept their demands after an active mass strike on February 27 and 28.
The militant and dignified resistance of the shipyard workers of Tuzla, where in the last 8 months 18, since 2000 31 and altogether 82 workers lost their lives because of work-related accidents, has been a strong example for the working class` struggle in Turkey and Nothern Kurdistan. Under the leadership by their union Limter-Is, the shipyard workers lead a big fight and have overcome the repression of the bosses, the arrest and detention attacks of the police, the obstacles put in front of organisation at the union, yellow trade unionism, the counter-union Dok-Gemi-Is, the lack of solidarity between the sectors and the firms, and the unsuitable conditions for organising at the Tuzla shipyard region.
The workers demanded to take the security measures nessecary to hinder any further work-related accidents leading to death, to convict those responsible for the deaths, to ensure human life and working conditions, to open the way to freely organisation at the union and to abolish the outsourcing system, and joined the strike with a participation of 60%. Despite many workers and Limter-Is leaders arrested at the beginning of the strike, the workers continued with their resistance and brought the bosses and government in a difficult situation.
Die to their resistance, these workers who are condemned to work without membership in a union, to work under very difficult conditions and who are condemned to death by their bosses have put their names on the agenda of the country and the world.
With determination and courage, the union Limter-Is, which is following a revolutionary militant union line of the class, spread resistance sparkles in the shipyards, despite all the anti-propaganda. Here, the Tuzla strike showed that the obstacles in front of organisation in the union, which goes back constantly, could be overcome by an active legitimised resistance. The active strike announced has been an example for the struggles that the sectors and firms at which the resistance was broken with strike bans. In our country where privatisation, dismissals and working without any insurance and membership in a union are increasing continuously and have shown the way for leading the fight, as there has been no determined stance to organise strongly resist and class solidarity could not be organised, most resistances remain single actions or they are ended when they start. While Tuzla resistance takes its honoured place among great examples of resistance such as in the factories SEKA, Seydisehir and Pasabahce, it is the peak of these examples from the point of view of its union stance.
With their determined struggle the shipyard workers managed to get supported by some big union confederations such as DISK and KESK ; as well as many unions; democratic mass organisations; architects`, engineers` and dorctors` chambers and professional associations. Unions such as Tekstil-Sen , Deri-Is , SES , Petrol-Is , Nakliyat-Is , Emekli-Sen, Kristal-Is Gebze Branch, and TUMTIS defended the strike and raised the class solidarity.
During this period, and with the chauvinist hysteria and Kurdish hostility, the colonial dictatorship extended its military operations in South Kurdistan to land attacks via occupation, and tries to create a polarisation on the basis of secularity and Sharia using the case of the headscarf and other similar topics; by this the aim is to split the struggle of the working class and the labourers, to try to usurp the right of social insurance through SSGSS and launches one neo-liberal attack after the other. Therefore, the resistance of the Tuzla shipyard workers has been an answer to the attacks of the fascist dictatorship.
The resistance developed at Tuzla shipyards´ region, which has become the paradise of outsourcing work, hindering union work in practice, flexible working condirions and without any rules, has been the first as such a general strike in Turkey and Northern Kurdistan in a totally splitted region of many outsourcing firms. This strike shows the way which the working class must follow under imperialist globalisation attacks. In this sense, it is a victory and a post that must be strengthened not only by the struggle of the working class in our country but of the international working class, too.