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On December 15, more than 12,000 workers of 40 TEKEL companies of different provinces of Turkey and Northern Kurdistan met in Ankara demanding their rights of their jobs and steady employment. The Ankara action became the climax of the protests against the very weak wages and longer working hours being forced on the workers along with the privatisation of TEKEL. The Turkish bourgeois state turned a deaf ear to the protests until today and now attacked the Ankara resistance of the TEKEL workers with police truncheons and pepper spray.{divide}
The TEKEL workers played a special role in the struggle against privatisation and already carried out many resistances until today. Finally the TEKEL workers raised a resistance against privatisation last year and have been again attacked in Ankara by the police. An important peculiarity of the Ankara resistance, taking place in a period, in which the colonialist fascist regime tries to goad on the base of Turkish-Kurdish confrontation ethnic war provocations and tries to provoke and so use the Turkish workers and labourers for the attacks against the Kurdish people, is that it is a meeting of Turkish and Kurdish workers, which is very meaningful. Despite the police attacks the Ankara action continues determinately and is showing once more the uniting role the working class may play in the struggle of the Turkish and Kurdish workers and labourers against the reactionary violently fight against each others.
Resulting from the police attack, 3 workers suffered heart attacks and dozens of workers were wounded, many trade-unionist and workers have been detained. The numerous participation and militancy of women in the action was eye catching.
The attacking police was aiming at breaking the will of the workers with gas bombs and pressurized water, but in vain! The workers stated that they will not leave Ankara until their problems have been solved. The TEKEL workers are still waiting in Ankara and they are determinant to not return until they got their rights.
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