Sarya Gözüoğlu/JINHA

ÊLIH/AMED – This year, Kurdistan’s center for International Workers’ Day is the working class castle of Batman (Êlih in Kurdish). Workers say their rally in the city, where 800 workers have been let go in the past few months, will be a greeting to the new life being built in Kobanê and to workers’ resistance in Turkey.

Batman is known for being the center of Turkey’s oil industry. Workers from across Northern Kurdistan will be traveling to the city from Şırnak, Siirt, Mardin and Diyarbakır to join other workers in a massive rally starting at 11 a.m. on Friday. Since Turkey’s Parliament passed the recent Internal Security Law that gives police sweeping powers to use deadly force in protests, workers plan to be out in massive numbers to defend their right to take the streets.

Selam Canpolat, of the Batman branch of the petroleum workers’ union Petrol İş, said the group who needs to be out in force the most on Friday are women.

“Women, the segment of society whose labor is most exploited, need to be out saying they have a major role in production and possess equal rights,” said Selma. One of the themes of the rally this year will be stopping bosses’ harassment in the workplace.

Another issue on workers’ agenda is the wave of workplace disasters and neglect throughout Turkey over the last year. The most striking example was the Soma mine disaster in May 2014, in which 301 workers lost their lives due to massive safety regulation violations in the mine. Workers have pointed out that the ruling AKP’s cozy relationship with corporations has resulted in the lack of enforcement of safety regulations in workplaces and a wave of workplace neglect deaths that has become a massacre in Turkey.

Berivan Atasoy, spokesperson for Diyarbakır locals affiliated with the union confederation KESK (Confederation of Public Workers’ Unions), says that labor will be out in the streets from Istanbul to Kurdistan this year to call for an end to 13 years of AKP hegemony.

(sg-za/fk/cm)