Labor platform’s protest expected to draw many workers

Suburban trains will not run and workshops will stop producing for those two hours, while there will be no flights or school classes scheduled during the protest. Furthermore, doctors are among those striking, and they have announced that they will only treat emergency cases during that time period. As for the petrochemicals sector, 85 companies including the Turkish Petroleum Corporation (TPAO), Turkish Petroleum Refineries Corporation (TÜPRAŞ), the state-owned Turkish Pipeline Corporation (BOTAŞ) and petrochemicals producer PETKİM will stop work for two hours as well.

Education Personnel Labor Union (Eğitim-Sen) Chairman İsmail Koncuk said in a written statement released yesterday that approximately 150,000 of their members working in schools will halt work for two hours.

Koncuk accused the government of trying to take away workers' rights with the social security reform initiative and said the current reform initiative actually contradicted the structure of a socialist state and the realities of Turkey. Chemicals and Rubber Workers Union (Petrol-İş) President Mustafa Öztaşkın told the Anatolia news agency that there would be no sales conducted during the protest. Öztaşkın also underlined that today's protest was going to be the most effective legal protest held since a massive similar strike on Jan. 3, 1991. Saying that this protest would only be a starting point, Öztaşkın said it would expand across Turkey if the government did not take the steps deemed necessary by the Labor Platform.

Meanwhile, Civil Aviation Workers' Union (Hava-İş) President Atilay Ayçin also noted that the effects of their protest would be felt more in İstanbul as many flights originating there would be delayed. Members of 17 organizations, including those that make up the Labor Platform, such as the Confederation of Turkish Labor Unions (Türk-İş), the Confederation of Turkish Real Trade Unions (Hak-İş), the Confederation of Revolutionary Workers' Unions (DİSK) and the Confederation of Public Sector Trade Unions (KESK), organized a march yesterday from İstanbul's Tünel neighborhood to Taksim Square to protest the new social security bill.