Fourteen union activists have undertaken an extended strike after being unfairly dismissed from their jobs on April 17, 2018 after attempting to organise a union at the company’s corn-milling facility in Bursa-Orhangazi. Shortly after the Tekgida-İş labour union, an affiliate of the International Union of Food, Agricultural, Hotel, Restaurant, Catering, Tobacco, and Allied Workers’ Associations (IUF), applied to represent workers at the Cargill plant in March 2018, fourteen workers involved with the organising campaign were dismissed from their jobs.
According to the workers and their union representatives from the IUF, these dismissals are part of a pattern of anti-union practices at the Cargill facility. They follow the dismissals of seven other workers fired by management in 2012, 2014, and 2015 solely as a result of the employees’ attempts to unionise. The Turkish Supreme Court found that Cargill workers had been unfairly dismissed in each of these seven cases, and Cargill has been repeatedly informed of its violations by the IUF.
