The following speech was given by a Party militant in Portland, Oregon during the December actions in solidarity with the Sik Makas Workers.

We are here in solidarity with the struggle of the Şık Makas workers in Tokat, Turkey, organized into the combative, independent Turkish textile workers union BİRTEK-SEN, the United Textile, Weaving and Knitting Workers’ Union of Turkey.

The Class Struggle Action Network is an organization fighting for a renewed, combative labor movement, organizing around the principles of class unionism. This is a necessary way of struggling if we are going to face and win against the challenges we meet as the working class. We are a network of rank and file workers who start from a simple idea: society is divided between the bosses who profit from our labor and the working class whose lives are squeezed for those profits. There is no real “common interest” between workers and bosses, and our power comes from organizing together to defend our living standards, not from collaboration with the boss or the state. CSAN fights for class struggle unionism instead of business unionism, meaning unions that are independent from ruling class political parties. Whether it is the Democrats or the Republicans, we reject both ruling class parties because they only represent and impose the interests of the ruling class on us. We need action rooted in the shop floor, willing to strike, and committed to uniting workers across trades, sectors, and borders instead of competing or being divided by racism, sexism, nationalism, or any other form of oppression.

We believe unions should be fighting organs of the working class, not lobbying machines or extensions of the HR department. That means putting economic demands front and center, fighting for higher wages, fighting against tiers that divide us, fighting for the lowest paid workers, rejecting “no strike” clauses, and rebuilding real, strong strike power and solidarity that refuses to cross picket lines. CSAN is committed to organizing the unorganized, strengthening combative forces inside existing unions, and working toward a united class union front that can coordinate struggle and build toward mass, united worker action against the bosses and this rotten capitalist system, based in the insatiable drive for profit at the cost of humanity.

From stagnant wages to being overworked, all at the behest of the boss and the capitalist ruling class profiting off our labor, we are under attack. They attack us on many fronts as workers, from rising prices to the policing and detention of immigrants. In capitalism’s desperate quest for profit, needed to keep this dying system afloat, the capitalist class attacks immigrant workers in the U.S. and beyond. These attacks aim to control and maintain a highly exploited section of the working class, composed largely of immigrants, in addition to disciplining the working class broadly.

When we begin to think about immigration and immigrant workers, we truly see the international nature of the working class, the capitalist economy, and the importance of internationalism in the class struggle. Immigrant workers are forced to move away from where the consequences of capitalism are felt the most intensely, including poverty, war, and environmental degradation that forces the movement and displacement of hundreds of millions of people from their countries of origin. Workers are forced to leave where they are born in order to seek access to higher wages, improved/safer living and working conditions. When they arrive they are often pitted against native-born workers, told that we are each other’s enemies and that we must fight each other for jobs and wages. These are lies from the boss and the ruling class.

If we are to win a better life and be strong in this struggle, we must reject all nationalism and be in connection and organization with our fellow workers across the world and across borders. In particular because the capitalists already do this. They exploit us and profit from us within an international supply chain in which the boss is highly organized.

This importance of internationalism brings me to the particular reason we are here today in front of this Zara store. Textile workers in Turkey produce clothes for Zara and other companies including H&M, Mango, Levi’s, GAP, New Look, and Bestseller.

These workers, in particular those who produce clothing for these companies at the Şık Makas factory located in Tokat, Turkey, are in a fierce struggle against their boss and the Turkish state.

Şık Makas, also called Cross Jeans, is a factory in Tokat where thousands of garment workers have been kept at bare minimum wages that do not even meet the official State designated line to be able to feed oneself and family, let alone meet the cost of living. For over a year, wages were paid late. Then, starting in August 2025, hundreds of workers stopped receiving wages altogether. More than 2,200 workers have been forced to resign or were dismissed over the last year and a half, many without severance or any of the legal entitlements they are owed. When workers stopped work over unpaid wages on October 6, the official employer and state aligned union sided with the boss, pressured them back to work, and then helped justify mass firings by spreading false accusations of “violence” from the striking workers.

Out of this crisis, workers turned to BİRTEK-SEN, an independent, combative textile workers union. Hundreds left the regime union and joined BİRTEK-SEN because of wage theft, threats, and the union’s open collaboration with management. This situation and the employer’s actions have brought destitution to these workers: evictions, families going into debt, children pulled from school, and workers pushed into severe psychological distress, all while global brands like H&M, Zara, Mango, Levi’s and Bestseller continue to profit from the factory’s production.

We are here to demand that these unpaid wages of the Şık Makas workers be paid. We are here in solidarity with our fellow workers from one side of the world to the other. We are here to stand together as the working class.

Pay Şık Makas workers! Pay Şık Makas workers! Pay them! Pay them! Pay them! Pay them!

Pay them their wages!

This situation is not unique to Turkey, but reflects the reality of millions of textile and garment workers who are paid minuscule wages, most commonly in countries like China, India, Bangladesh, and Pakistan. These factories operate under contracts dictated by international brands based in the United States and European countries such as the UK and Spain.

These same corporations that exploit workers in Turkey’s factories and beyond exploit workers everywhere, including retail workers in the United States and Europe. We face the same enemy, and we must fight together.

The working class is connected internationally through the global capitalist supply chain, from the workers in Turkey who produce the clothes to the retail workers in the United States and Europe who sell them. This gives the working class the power to coerce the bosses on an international level to meet our demands. Without us, the workers, there is no profit to be had. Therefore organized worker power and international solidarity can force these brands and bosses to pay what they owe.

Solidarity with the Sik Makas Workers! Solidarity with Birtek Sen! Workers of the world, unite!