This is a cross-post from Howie’s Corner
The Turkish public sector trade union representing some 240,000 members has begun a two day strike accusing the Islamist Government of committing “state terror” according to today’s issue of the London Evening Standard. Two people have been killed and more than 1,700 people arrested as protests have spread to some 60 or more cities across Turkey.
An excellent piece of analysis by Juan Cole can be found on his blog Informed Comment:
Go to: http://www.juancole.com/2013/06/defiant-turkish-economy.html
It is essential that trade unionists in this country and around the world give whatever support they can to both the secularist demonstrators and the trade unions engaged in a struggle to defend their basic human rights against the vicious Islamist Government under Prime Minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
Labourstart have issued the following message:
Two national trade union centres in Turkey have announced general strikes in the wake of police violence and widespread arrests of protesters.
The International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC), which represents 175 million workers in 156 countries has called for union members to support our brothers and sisters in Turkey by signing up to the online campaign we launched yesterday.
You can read the ITUC statement here.
I know that thousands of you reading this message have already sent off your messages — to you I say, thank you, but let’s do more.
Please get your union on board — help us get the word out that we need thousands more supporters.
This is the web address we should be sharing with all our members:
http://www.labourstartcampaigns.net/show_campaign.cgi?c=1840
Labourstart can be found at: http://www.labourstart.org/2013/
