Tekel workers completed the 44th day of their protests yesterday, in front of Türk-İş headquarters, in Ankara, despite the special police forces’ violence and the intolerable governments’ position. 

Minister Şimşek alleged that the government has “done everything it can for the workers dismissed from Tekel, but does not have the luxury of wasting public money.” Recalling that the privatization of Tekel was not authorized by the Justice and Development Party (AK Party) government but the previous ones, he said that in 2007 the government had granted the workers two extra years before they were laid off.

The workers were forced to work 10 months and take unpaid leave for 2 months, working for a wage that is one third of the wage they have been paid hitherto, and to give up their employee rights and bonuses accumulated so far. “Tekel workers have right to decent, full-time work in the public sector, and a wage enough to live off”, the unions defend.

The President of the Party of European Left, Lothar Bisky, regrets that Turkish government is ignoring the union's calls for negotiations and sees no reason for this intolerant behavior and is very concerned with the closure of former TEKEL warehouses, a decision that involves the dismissal of some 12,000 workers.

Having lost their jobs due to factory closures in the wake of the monopoly’s privatization, the employees started a protest in Ankara on Dec. 15, demanding that the government find positions for them with other state institutions or enterprises. On the 35th day of the dispute, protestors from across the country started a hunger strike in front of the Ankara headquarters of the Confederation of Turkish Labor Unions (Türk-İş).

Meanwhile, European Parliament and EL member Jürgen Klute and German Food Workers Union member Selahattin Yıldırım met with Mustafa Türkel, the president of the Union of Tobacco, Alcoholic Beverage, Food and Related Industry Workers (TekGıda-İş), in Ankara. They visited the workers and supported the Tekel workers’ dispute for their rights.

Tekel was sold to British American Tobacco, on February 2008, with a tender, which lasted only 17 minutes, at a price that is equal to the amount of the profits the enterprise could make only in 4 years. The British American Tobacco did not buy TEKEL to produce cigarettes. It shut down these factories so as to take over the market of TEKEL in a cheap way. Thereby, it has become a monopoly.

These workers must see their labor rights accomplished and be transferred to other institutions with their full employee benefits in accordance with the law.