JINHA

ISTANBUL - At Istanbul's Serapool pool supply factory, women are leading the resistance after a worker was fired for being a union member.

Workers at the Serapool Pool Supplies Manufacturing Factory in the Pendik district of Istanbul have recently marked their 28th day of resistance. A group of around 140 mostly female workers have abandoned their posts for 28 days, essentially striking for the right to a union.

The women had begun a campaign to join the Glass and Ceramic Workers Union (affiliated with Turkey's DİSK union confederation), hoping to change the harsh working conditions in the factory.

"The boss won't even look in our faces. Those who just want to meet with them get fired," said Satı Urbaş, one of the women holding vigil outside the factory.Satı described working in 50°C heat, lifting 40-kilogram boxes with a half-hour break every day. Bosses cut off workers' health insurance when they were injured.The workers began a union organizing campaign, but it was difficult.

"Most of the workers in the factory are women. Most of these women are people with belief. But [the boss] would say 'unions are haram, don't join,'" said Satı. The women started one-on-one conversations with the women workers, and things began to change. "After these conversations, we took one look, and it was the women who don't even talk to men who were saying the slogans."

But when one worker was fired for being a union member, the rebellion began in earnest. "The boss came and said union members over here, non-union workers over here," recalled Satı. "But when the boss said this, our non-union friends also stood up and said, 'we're union members too.' Then the boss was abandoned, and production totally stopped."

Since then, the resistance has been ongoing outside the factory, often with ten police officers for every worker there. The opposition parties HDP and CHP have come to the factory to show support, but women here have asked bitterly why the AKP politicians have not come. Most of the workers here had voted for the AKP in the last election.

Satı says the Serapool workers will be back in the factory only when they can do it as union members.

(en/dc/gc/fk/cm)