Turkey’s major trade unions, including The Confederation of Revolutionary Trade Unions (DISK), The Confederation of Public Workers’ Unions (KESK), and the Education and Science Workers’ Union (Eğitim-Sen) are meeting early today after soaring call for general strike to give weight to anti-government protests across Turkey, which were sparked by a brutal police crackdown on a peaceful sit-in in Istanbul’s Gezi Park on May 30, 2013.

Turkey’s trade unions gather to coordinate general strike in protest of state terror

Istanbul Eğitim Sen (Education and Science Workers Union) Branch No 6 announced that they will be doing a labour strike on June 3-4.

The announcement by Eğitim Sen Branch No 6 included the following statement:

“We call on all our members and university workers to support our labour strike with the conscience and responsibility attached to these historic days, and to elevate our just struggle against AKP’s anti-labour policies and state terror.”

THY (Turkish Airlines) strike, which Hava-iş (Civil Aviation Union) had started on 15 May still continues.

Update #1, June 3, 2013 – 15:56 (GMT)  KESK said it would issue a “warning strike” on June 4-5 to condemn the brutal crackdown and vengeful violence on anti-government protesters over the last few days.

“The state terror implemented against mass protests across the country … has shown once again the enmity to democracy of the AKP government,” said a statement from the leftist confederation KESK, which also criticised PM Erdoğan for his “dismissal of millions of protesters as a “bunch of looters.” The confederation has some 240,000 members in 11 unions.

Update #2, June 3, 2013 – 16:26 (GMT) In a similar fashion, DISK said it would also issue a “warning strike” on June 4-5. Alluding to Erdoğan’s statements on Syria’s Bashar Assad earlier this year, it added “a regime that tyrannizes its own people loses all legitimacy.”

03 June 2013
Source: ireport.cnn.com

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