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UNI joins ITF condemnation of shootings and layoffs in UPS Turkey dispute



UNI has supported the ITF's demands to stop the dispute at UPS which has now got totally out of hand by the management.



Speaking from the picket line outside the UPS Turkey offices in Istanbul, Mac Urata, Secretary of the ITF’s Inland Transport Sections, today condemned the latest reported attacks on company employees. The picket is being held to protest against the apparent victimisation of trade unionists working for UPS Turkey, 119 of whom have been sacked.



Urata said: “Unbelievably the attacks – which have been reported to include sackings and intimidation – today became even worse. In Izmir this morning shots were fired, allegedly by a manager of the UPS subcontractor, who the trade union believes was forcing workers to resign their union membership at the office of a notary public. Thankfully no one was wounded, and the perpetrator is reported to be in the hands of the police, at least for now.”



“Meanwhile, the continuing complaints about the injustice of the treatment of the members of the ITF-affiliated TÜMTİS union appear to be falling on deaf ears, with further layoffs apparently imminent. They have got worse, rather than better, following the return of UPS Turkey’s manager, who returned from UPS head office in Atlanta, USA, last week, and promptly laid off 30 workers.”



Mac Urata is at the Istanbul protest with Eduardo Chagas, General Secretary of the ETF (European Transport Workers’ Federation) as part of an international solidarity effort that has seen attendance there by members of the ITF, ETF and UNI Global Union, among others. The dispute became international in April 2010 after TÜMTİS appealed to the ITF for international support, following the sackings of UPS Turkey workers apparently in connection with their carrying out trade union activities*.



Mac Urata continued: “We will once again be speaking to UPS head office to ask them to intervene immediately with their subsidiary in Turkey, while our colleagues in the ETF will also be raising the matter with the European Parliament, and jointly we will do the same with the Prime Minister of Turkey.”