31 July, 2025The Turkish government has banned a lawful strike by mineworkers at state-owned Eti Maden, using a last-minute presidential decree to halt preparations for industrial action just hours before it was due to begin.
The strike, set for 1 August 2025 and organized by IndustriALL affiliate Maden-İş, was postponed for 60 days through Presidential Decree No. 10150, signed by President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan on 30 July and published in the Official Gazett. The decree claims the strike poses a threat to national security.
“It is completely unacceptable that yet another strike has been banned in Türkiye with the same method, although the ILO has criticised the Turkish government over this practice multiple times,”
said IndustriALL assistant general secretary Kemal Özkan.
“We stand in full solidarity with Turkish mineworkers in their rightful struggle for fair and legitimate demands.”
Although officially labelled a "postponement," this is in practice a strike ban. Under Turkish labour law, once the 60-day period expires without a resolution, the dispute is automatically referred to compulsory arbitration, a process that bypasses workers’ right to strike and imposes a binding settlement without further negotiation.
More than 600,000 public sector workers have been negotiating for a new collective agreement for over seven months. The government’s wage proposal, 24 per cent for the first half of 2025, 11 per cent for the second, followed by 10 per cent and 6 per cent for 2026, was rejected by Maden-İş and national centre Türk-İş as inadequate in the face of Türkiye’s high inflation.
The Turkish government has repeatedly used strike “postponements” in key sectors, drawing international criticism, including from the International Labour Organization (ILO), for undermining freedom of association and collective bargaining rights, protected under ILO Conventions 87 and 98.
IndustriALL Global Union condemns this attack on trade union rights and calls on the Turkish government to revoke the decree, respect international standards, and engage in good-faith negotiations.