UNI-Europa in E-Kart protest

Veröffentlicht: 27 Mai 2008
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Deputation at E-Kart building



Michel Muller and Philip Jennings lead demonstrators to E-Kart



Basin-IS members



Yakup Akkaya outside E-Kart



Mustafa Eren from the E-Kart holding company

 UNI-Europa Executive took its protest at a serious violation rights at graphical company E-Kart on to the streets of Istanbul.

With a contingent of Basin-IS members and led by UNI General Secretary Philip Jennings, UNI Graphical World President Michael Muller and UNI-Europa Graphical President Simon Dubbins they delivered a letter of protest to E-Kart.

For two years E-Kart has been working to keep out Graphical affiliate Basin-IS and avoid a collective agreement - including firing two union members and forcing other workers to leave the union.

All this in spite of a ruling from Turkey’s Supreme Court backing the union and a legal certificate from the Ministry of Labour to Basin-IS to bargain collectively for E-Kart workers.

Al this in spite, also, of the Eczacibasi Group’s signature of the Global Compact and a code of conduct at German-based joint venture partner Giesecke and Devrient’s that upholds core labour standards.



“It’s totally unacceptable for us that the issue of trade union rights and freedom is a local or workplace issue. Democracy is universal,” said the UNI-Europa Executive in the letter to Eczacibasi’s Chairman Bülent Eczacibasi and Dr Karsten Ottenberg, Chairman of the Management Board and CEO of G&D.

“If your managers don’t agree on this principle then you should either review your company principles and withdraw your signature from the Global Compact - or instruct your managers to change their attitudes and actions.”



A four-man team from UNI and Basin-IS was allowed into the lobby of the E-Kart offices for a 15-minute talk with Mustafa Eren form the holding company.

“We told E-Kart that this is a local issue, which is fast becoming a European issue that we will take to the European Commission, to the European Parliament and to the German Parliament,” reported Philip Jennings.

“They have an opportunity to talk to the Turkish union - otherwise we will raise the issue with the Global Compact that has a review meeting in Geneva this week.”

“You are a modern company with old fashioned labour relations,” Michel Muller told Mr Eren.

The impromptu demonstration attracted media attention and Basin-IS’s Yakup Akkaya gave his reactions on the day’s events to Istanbul television.