Strike at Özak Tekstil [Turkey]
From KOMÜNİST PARTİ #7
A very important struggle and actual strike has been taking place for the Turkish working class at Özak Tekstil, operating in Şanlıurfa, since November 2023. The United States-based Levi Strauss company is among the main customers of Özak Tekstil, which operates a factory in Istanbul as well as Urfa. In this context, as the International Communist Party, we found it appropriate to focus on this struggle.
What happened
The struggle began on November 19, when approximately 450 of the 700 workers working in the Urfa factory came together and declared that they left Öz İplik-İş, the collaborative regime union affiliated with Hak-İş, and joined the combative BİRTEK-SEN (United Textile Workers Union). It started with. Thus, BİRTEK-SEN, which until then was a small combative textile union based in Antep, not only increased its number of members several times, but also became the authorized union in Özak Tekstil. Workers also complain about ill-treatment, swearing, poor quality food, service problems, increased workload, union-boss cooperation, daily wages cut despite being forced to work 7 days after the February 6 earthquake, verbal harassment against the private lives of female workers, and uncertain work that sometimes lasts until four in the morning. They were against working conditions such as working hours.
This was not the first rebellion against the regime union in the region where the textile industry is widespread. About three years ago, Özak Tekstil workers, together with the workers working in the Urfa Uğur Tekstil factory, resigned from Öz İplik-İş again, this time the regional manager at that time became a member of the DİSK Textile Union, now the president of BİRTEK-SEN, and a hard struggle lasted for months. It resulted in a win even though DİSK Tekstil did not stand behind the workers. BİRTEK-SEN itself was born out of the necessity of creating an alternative to the betrayal attitude of DİSK Tekstil.
As a reaction to the organization of BİRTEK-SEN in the factory, company managers and Öz İplik-İş managers began to pressure the workers to return to the collaborative union, blackmailed them by calling them for one-on-one meetings, and went so far as to threaten female workers with intervening in their private lives. When the company was about to lay off one worker on November 27, approximately 450 workers went on strike. In the following days, workers would face barricades and gas baton attacks by the gendarmerie and police many times, and workers and unionists, including the president of BİRTEK-SEN, would be detained many times. Ultimately, on December 6, the gendarmerie attacked the workers with batons and pepper gas and detained 19 workers and three union leaders. As a result, workers who continued to work in the factory went out and joined the strike.
The strike of Özak Tekstil workers had a remarkable repercussion in the militant sections of the working class. BİRTEK-SEN called for action on a national and international scale in solidarity with the struggle of Özak Tekstil workers. In addition to many grassroots unions in Turkey, especially members of the Deriteks union affiliated with Türk-İş protested for Özak Tekstil workers or commemorated Özak Tekstil workers in their actions. At the international level, formations such as the Free Workers’ Union from Iran and the Class Struggle Action Network from the USA tried to organize solidarity with Özak Tekstil workers. Despite all this, DİSK Tekstil continued its hostile attitude towards BİRTEK-SEN with the support of DİSK headquarters.
Ultimately, Özak Tekstil laid off more than 400 workers and began trying to force the workers to end the struggle by accepting compensation. This attitude of the boss was effective enough to cause the number of workers engaged in active struggle to fall to around 150. Still, the struggle of Özak workers continues with the support of most of the workers who accepted compensation.
Lessons of Struggle
The fact that the Urfa-Antep region has a very large industry and that a significant part of this industry is concentrated in the textile sector revealed the possibility that what happened in Özak Tekstil could have great effects throughout the country. The Özak Tekstil strike could have triggered a massive attempt by the region’s textile workers, most of whom are organized in Öz İplik İş, to change unions, similar to what happened in the metal industry against the mafia regime union Türk-Metal in 2015. Although this possibility seems far from reality for now, the only chance for Özak Tekstil workers to win is to expand their struggle by spreading it to the workers of enterprises facing similar conditions. For this purpose, rather than focusing only on the Özak Tekstil factory, mobile pickets can be sent to other textile factories.
The main weakness of the Özak Tekstil struggle is the illusion that Levi’s company taking action against Özak Tekstil will bring victory. In fact, the arch enemy of the strikers is the Levi’s company itself, even more than Özak Tekstil itself. Levi’s is one of the textile monopolies that constitute world imperialism. Although its headquarters is in the USA, it produces in countries such as Bangladesh and Haiti, as well as Turkey, by taking advantage of the inequalities between countries’ conditions created by the imperialist system. Workers’ struggles against the Levi’s company have taken place in these two countries in recent years. In this process, BİRTEK-SEN’s mistake was that they addressed Levi’s bosses rather than Levi’s workers and took their declared working condition commitments seriously. This attitude can be explained by the illusions that the grassroots trade union movement in Turkey carries about democracy in general and Western democracies in particular.
Similarly, bourgeois left parties, both "solidarity" by organizing unions and political parties together under the name of "democracy platforms" and promising a solution to the issue through the parliament through their deputies, contributed to preventing the perspective of the spread of the struggle from becoming the focal point of the Özak Tekstil struggle. The struggle of Özak Tekstil workers has been embraced as another focus of activism to be supported alongside many issues unrelated to the class struggle.
These weaknesses do not overshadow the heroic struggle of Özak Tekstil workers under the leadership of their union BİRTEK-SEN. Ultimately, in this strike, which took place in a relatively small enterprise, Özak Tekstil workers fought a tough struggle alone in the region and in their sector, under difficult conditions, and did not give up and resisted the pressure of the boss, the regime union, the gendarmerie, the police and the court. In this context, they have undertaken an exemplary struggle for the Turkish working class, but all this is not enough for the strike to win. It is time to address all workers in the region, especially in the textile industry.
Struggles such as the Özak Tekstil strike, especially to the extent that they unmask the opportunists leading DİSK, will encourage workers at the base of DİSK to turn their faces away from the regime unions and bourgeois left parties that their leaders are inclined towards, towards the small but combative union focuses that have had to organize outside DİSK. Thus, a grassroots class union front that emerges can draw workers under the influence of the regime unions into a much more struggle than establishing fronts from the top with the regime unions and bourgeois left parties.
The following leaflet was distributed at Levi Strauss
store locations in the United States.
For the past 10 days, factory workers at Özak Tekstil, a textile factory in Urfa, southeastern Turkey, have been on strike and fighting heroically against the company, the collaborationist union, and the boss’s regime.
It all started on November 19th, when about 450 workers out of 700 employed at the factory gathered in an assembly and announced that they were leaving the yellow, collaborationist union, Öz İplik-İş (Real Thread Workers Union), a member of the Hak-İş regime trade union confederation, and joining the confrontational union Birtek-Sen (United Textile Workers Union).
The leaders of the company and the Öz İplik-İş leaders reacted by starting to pressure the workers to return to the collaborationist union, summoning them to one-on-one talks in which they were blackmailed, going so far as to threaten the women workers with intrusions into their private lives!
It was when the company went so far as to lay off a worker – on November 27th – that about 450 workers went on strike, first organizing a procession inside the factory and then coming out into the street.
On November 29th, the Urfa governorate issued a ban on demonstrations in the city, the police attacked workers outside the factory, and the leader of Birtek-Sen was arrested and then released.
The next day, the army had deployed to prevent workers from approaching the factory entrance thus allowing scabs to enter. Since December 1st, the army has even erected a wall of iron gates and armored cars to prevent workers from entering the street leading to the factory!
On December 2nd, workers demonstrated in downtown Urfa and were again attacked by police forces.
On December 5th, on the ninth day of the struggle, the company reported the workers to the court for an “illegal strike.”
On Dec. 6th, the army attacked workers with batons and tear gas, arresting 19 workers and three union leaders, including again the head of Birtek-Sen. Resulting in the workers who were continuing to work inside the factory coming out and joining the strike!
This struggle is very important because the area is an industrial district with many other textile factories, including the city of Gaziantep, 150 km west of Urfa, where Turkish and Syrian workers united in a foundry strike last January, dealing a blow to the racist propaganda of the ruling class.
This struggle is important also because it points the way for the entire working class in Turkey on striking and organizing outside and against the regime unions!
The strike has gained national prominence. In the city of İzmir (Izmir), workers who are members of Deriteks, the textile workers’ union that is a member of the Türk-İş regime trade union confederation, staged a demonstration demanding wage increases and expressed solidarity with their struggling class brothers and sisters at Özak Tekstil in Urfa.
This textile factory has among its main clients; Levi Strauss & Co, a United States based company. This is why as workers in the U.S. and as CSAN (Class Struggle Action Network) we want to express our solidarity with our class brothers and sisters at Özak Tekstil, claiming their freedom to organize into a genuine fighting union like Birtek-Sen, and to denounce the anti-worker front composed of the bosses, the government and State, and regime unions!
We denounce Levi Strauss & Co. owners and bosses as complicit in the exploitation and oppression of our fellow workers in Turkey.
Long live the struggle of the workers of Özak Tekstil!Long live class unionism, against collaborationist and regime unionism!
For the extension of the strike above factory and category boundaries!
For international workers’ solidarity and unity!
Class Struggle Action Network