Group photo
Workshop group overlooking the Bosphorous
Delegates from North Africa
Novamed strikers brief Graphical meeting |  | Pregnancy by rota and signing in and out of the toilet were just some of the humiliating conditions at work faced by women at a multinational company in Turkey producing blood products for dialysis.
Conditions at German-Italian owned Novamed in an export zone in Antalya got so bad that 81 workers went on strike - 79 of them women.
The strike has been going on for four months. They haven’t stopped the plant but already some of the worst grievances are being removed and the strikers have won support from women’s groups and trade unions across Turkey and overseas.
Talks to resolve the dispute resume at the end of November and the UNI Graphical organising seminar in Istanbul for women signed a solidarity statement for the strikers from Petrol-Is.
“This is just the tip of the iceberg - do not give up,” said Hazar Trabelsi of UGTT Tunisia.
“This is a battle in defence of women - we should not have to ask permission to breathe or exist,” said seminar chair Mercedes Rodrigues from CC.OO Spain.
The strikers told the seminar that the company had a pregnancy list that gave women a set two months to become pregnant or go back to the bottom of the list. Other outrages included a ban on staff talking to each other and a disregard for the health and safety of workers producing health products for others.
“Someone had to stay ‘stop’ to this,” striker Fatma Ozum told the Graphical members.
The Novamed case underlined the need for organising multinationals as they arrive in the region - the objective of a week of UNI Graphical conferences in Istanbul for unions in southern Europe, North Africa and the Middle East.
The strikers’ experiences also gave an insight into the cultural challenges to organising women in the region.
The Novamed activists had to get their husbands and families on-board before launching the union - and then came the strike. “It’s very difficult for a woman to go on strike,” said Fatma.
“We have gone through a lot as women,” said fellow striker Derya Tuna.
Workshop groups called for new organising initiatives to reach out to women and for unions to create women’s committees and to include women’s demands into collective bargaining. Violence and a lack of power were identified as big issues. “Women are not able to defend themselves because of problems with economic independence,” Amal Hassan Sahran reported on her group’s findings.
“Training makes women more confident and builds confidence in their union,” reported Suad Mubarak Mohamed from GFBTU Bahrain. Her group identified harassment, low pay, discriminatory pay, dismissal because of pregnancy and lack of maternity leave and social security payments as big issues for women in the region - and called for unions to widen the role in unions.
Support for the women came from Yakup Akkaya, who is President of affiliate Basin-Is that helped organise the week of conferences in Istanbul.
*To fight for gender equality we need a united movement,” said Yakup. “Only when there is strong organising at work do women join.”
“Women need a union today even more than men, because women suffer at work,” said Mongi Abderrahim of UGTT Tunisia and UNI Graphical’s coordinator for Arabic countries. |