Voice to the Özak garment workers’ resistance

By Editor-in-Chief on December 17, 2023

Turkey — Özak Textile was established 10 years ago in Urfa in southeastern Turkey as the 4th textile factory of Özak Holding. The factory mainly produces for international companies such as Levi’s, Zara and Hugo Boss. Since 1985, the holding has grown by expanding into many business lines. In addition to state subsidies and tax breaks, the lion’s share of this growth has been due to the intensely exploitative conditions imposed on the workers.

In addition to extremely low wages, the factory, which employs 700 workers, is characterized by systematic repression.

One of the leading supporters of the boss’ intense pressure on the workers, including harassment, is the Öz İplik-İş union, affiliated to the pro-government confederation. The union, which is supposed to be a workers’ organization, works completely at the behest of the boss and pursues an anti-worker attitude. When the boss, who was informed that the workers, who were receiving not support but hostility from the union, were organizing to change unions, dismissed a woman worker, 450 workers who were members of BİRTEK-SEN stopped work and started
resistance.

The governor, proving that he is the governor of capital, banned the workers from gathering in front of the factory and banned all actions such as press statements and demonstrations in the city. The gendarmerie, implementing the ban, besieged the factory and prevented the workers from approaching. The anti-worker attitude of the gendarmerie, acting like the boss’ orderlies, continued even when the governor’s temporary ban was lifted: The gendarmerie attacks the workers with punches, kicks and poison gas. BİRTEK-SEN general chairman and executives who were constantly with the workers, and dozens of workers were detained many times.

The new workers that the boss tried to hire instead of the workers who stopped work refused to take the job upon the calls of the striking workers. On the 10th day of the resistance, the gendarmerie brutally attacked the strikers with kicks and poisonous gas, who tried to prevent the recruitment of new workers to the factory, also revolted the workers who continued to work by not stopping work. The majority of the workers said, “This has turned into a matter of honor. During the morning shift, our fellow workers who were resisting outside were kicked and batoned. Our conscience did not accept this and we joined the resistance” and production in the factory stopped completely.

On the 11th day of the resistance, the Provincial Administration of Religious Affairs, a state institution, banned the workers from entering the mosque, where some of them had worked in the construction of the mosque and where many of them prayed on regular days.

The workers, on the other hand, are determined and their determination is sharpened as they see that capital and the state, with its parties, media, governor-police-gendarmerie, mobilized against them and forming a class front. They realize that they cannot improve their working and living conditions without uniting and waging a determined struggle against capital and the state. Women workers at the forefront of the resistance said, “With the resistance, we remembered that we are human beings. Sometimes we were working non-stop for a week, not seeing the sun. We were under constant pressure and threats. This is the first time we are experiencing resistance. We have recognized friend and foe alike.”

A striking worker who supported the ruling party AKP in the elections so far said, “No one from this party has looked at our faces against the persecution. However, I have done a lot of work and received a lot of training in the AKP. We have traveled from village to village to collect votes in the elections before.” And he asks: “Is justice in favor of the rich? Why is our state a partner in this oppression? Why is it not on the side of the laborer?” And he concludes: “They deceive people under the guise of religion, let them realize that we are not idiots.”

Sevda Karaca, Deputy Chairperson of EMEP, an MP from the neighboring province, who has not left the workers alone since the day they stopped work, calls for the following: “Solidarity and resistance are growing at Özak Tekstil! The anti-labor, misogynist, anti-worker government has laid all the means of the state at the feet of the Özak boss, the governor, gendarmerie, police, İŞKUR have mobilized for the boss. Özak workers did not give up, did not break their unity, and defended their will. Workers and friends of labor all over the country gave voice to the voice of Özak Textile workers. If Özak Textile workers win, the whole working class wins. Let’s make the voice of the resistance louder! #OzakDirenişineSesVer (#VoiceToTheOzakResistance)”