The resistance of approximately 1,000 workers at the Şık Makas textile factory, located in Tokat in central Anatolia, continues.
The struggle of the Şık Makas workers has so far achieved significant gains:
☑️ Nearly all accumulated and unpaid wages have been paid,
☑️ The Code 22 practice has been abolished, and the vast majority of workers have begun to receive unemployment benefits.
However, the struggle is not over.
Today, some of the workers who led the resistance are being targeted; they are being punished by having their codes changed again and their unemployment benefits (re)cancelled. Meanwhile, severance pay and notice compensation for all workers have still not been paid.
At the beginning, brands such as H&M, ZARA, and MANGO put pressure on the employer by taking responsibility for the workers who produced their goods. Recently, however, they have once again adopted a slow and ineffective stance.
LEVI’S, BESTSELLER, ONLY, and URBAN, despite these clear and inhumane violations of workers’ rights, continue to act as if nothing has happened and to work with Şık Makas in Turkey and Egypt.
We know that these brands, together with employers in Turkey, are chasing cheaper labor in Egypt and other countries, forcing workers in different countries into an inhumane competition under conditions of slavery and misery. As if that were not enough, we will never allow them to also seize the rights of workers left behind in those countries, such as wages and compensation. The owner of Şık Makas and the brands for which the workers produce goods are obliged to pay the wages and rights of the workers they employ in full and without exception.
This is our call to all friends of labor in different countries:
Let us strengthen solidarity. Through solidarity, workers will win.
BİRTEK-SEN and Şık Makas Workers
