Aydemir Güler and Mustafa Tozkoparan, two independent parliamentary candidates of “This Social Order Must Change Platform" for Turkey’s upcoming elections on June 24, paid a visit for solidarity on May 18 to the 115 discharged employees of Flormar, a local brand of the international cosmetics brand Yves Rocher, for unionising.
The workers were fired because they had been unionised in the Chemical and Rubber Workers’ Union of Turkey (Petrol-İş) who had approached the company with negotiations on a collective bargain and started picketing in front of the plant.
Süleyman Akyüz, the Branch Chairperson of Petrol-İş, delivered a speech to the Flormar workers and others who were there for support. Stating that what the executives of Flormar had done was inhuman, and that those who gathered there to support the workers were friends of labour and the working class, Akyüz emphasised that class struggled must be strengthened.
After Akyüz’s speech, Aydemir Güler took the floor, who is an independent candidate in the 1st electoral district in İstanbul. Güler said: “The Chairman said that we were a handful of people here, only 120. And we came here as 50. It is a handful, as well … But there is something else here – humanity demanding justice. And this is out of hand.”
Stating that it is absurd to expect justice from those who are glad for the peacemaking regulation so that they can fire workers as they wish, Güler also said: “Beauty products are manufactured here. What makes one more beautiful – those products, or struggling and class solidarity?”
Aydemir Güler also mentioned the upcoming elections, stating that the election was only a pretext, and they would go and visit the workers anyway. He said: “Some are by the capitalists, and others by the workers. We are the latter.”
After Aydemir Güler’s speech, Mustafa Tozkoparan, another independent candidate of the Platform running for elections in the city of Kocaeli, took the floor.
Tozkoparan told: “I am a metal worker. I was a representative in the United Metal Workers’ Union for years. What I have learned from this experience is that the workers who do not lay a claim on their labour and honour lose.” Tozkoparan also said that the resistance of the Flormar workers was an example for everyone that would carry them to the future.
After Tozkoparan, a resisting worker delivered a speech. He said that those who went to the resistance in Flormar did it for the class struggle, and that after getting fired, the workers have become even more united.
