4 April, 2012
Turkish workers of rubber manufacturer Standard Profil, organised by ICEM affiliate Petrol-İş over a year ago, are more determined than ever to get a collective agreement from a recalcitrant employer. On 2 April, some 500 workers gathered with union President Mustafa Öztaşkin outside plant gates in the northern Anatolian city of Düzce to publicly state that union and workers will not be deterred in gaining their universally recognised collective bargaining rights.
The ICEM as well joined the demonstration, the first such outward display by workers amidst a climate of management fear and intimidation, and promised that pressure will continue against the private equity firm that controls Standard Profil, a maker of weather-sealing door and window units for the automotive industry.
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The rally saw a number of Anatolian labour leaders participate along with Öztaşkin, Petrol-İş Organising Secretary Nimetullah Sözen and regional Organiser Ǘnal Akbulut. Gathering under the banner “One Year is Enough: Standard Profil Workers Are Unionised – They Want Their Right to Collective Bargaining,” the manifestation was conducted under the watchful eyes of managers who dispatched transport buses through in an effort to disrupt it.
Following a Petrol-İş organising drive from December 2010 to February 2011 that saw well over half of 2,300 workers from the plant in Düzce and a sister factory in Bursa select the union as their bargaining representative, Turkey’s Labour and Social Security Ministry in March and April 2011 formally granted a pair of certifications stating Petrol-İş was both the correct sectoral union – rubber – for Standard Profil workers, and that it had exceeded the simple majority needed for representation.
Despite Petrol-İş and ICEM invitations to both Istanbul executives of Standard Profil and the UK-based private equity firm to form a positive labour-management relationship, the company chose an adversarial path by wasting company funds in legal challenges to both certifications in an effort to block workers from their legitimate workplace rights.
Standard Profil managers further muddied the waters by sacking 37 union activists inside the larger Düzce factory, a grievous factory-level ploy to intimidate others against the union. Judging from Monday’s determined and vocal manifestation, workers are not intimidated. But they are growing short of patience with management’s stalling strategy through frivolous legal appeals.
One Year is Enough
Petrol-İş President Öztaşkin made it clear at the one-year anniversary that a new era has now begun. The union will move in a different direction to get Standard Profil to the bargaining table. “We cannot and will not accept this employer’s attempts to block the internationally rights and freedoms of workers,” he said.
The ICEM has begun to take the rights abuses outside Turkey. Standard Profil’s major auto-making customers have been identified and efforts are underway to alert trade unions and automotive factory managements of the company’s dereliction. In some instances, Volkswagen/Audi and Daimler for instance, global labour pacts contain strict guidelines that suppliers must comply with basic workplace rights.
The rubber manufacturer’s assets are controlled by Bancroft Private Equity LLP, a holding company that has been trying to dispose of Standard Profil since last year. The ICEM has made it clear to Bancroft – and to the buyers of Standard Profil’s products – that a positive and respectful labour relations bond with Petrol-İş is far better than an adversarial one to ensure a productive and profitable future for the auto supply company.