These Cargill Workers in Turkey Have Spent Over 1,000 Days Protesting Their Unfair Firing

A conversation with Suat Karlikaya, a lead organizer with the Tobacco, Drink, Food and Allied Workers Trade Union of Turkey.

Maximillian Alvarez

Ken Wolter/Shutterstock

Don't miss the special, extra-length issue of In These Times devoted entirely to the subject of socialism in America today. This special issue is available now. Order your copy today for just $5.00, shipping included.

Production workers at Cargill Turkey were unfairly dismissed on April 17, 2018, while trying to unionize. Listeners will probably recognize the name Cargill: Based in Minnetonka, Minnesota, Cargill is the largest privately held corporation in the United States. And Cargill’s reach is truly global, with operations around the world focusing on the trade, purchase, distribution and production of agricultural commodities, energy, livestock and ingredients for processed food. When workers at a Cargill starch plant in Bursa-Orhangazi tried to unionize under Tekgıda-İş (the Tobacco, Drink, Food and Allied Workers Trade Union of Turkey), they were dismissed for their union activity. Under Turkish law, companies like Cargill can simply pay fines for such human rights violations and factor it into the cost of doing business.” However, these same companies are not required to reinstate unjustly dismissed workers, even if Turkish courts have definitively ruled that the dismissals were illegal.

For over 1,000 days, these workers and Tekgıda-İş have been fighting an ongoing battle with Cargill to have their jobs reinstated. In this special episode (our first interview that is accessible to both English and Turkish speakers), we talk with Suat Karlikaya, a lead organizer with Tekgıda-İş, about Cargill Turkey’s retaliatory dismissal of workers who tried to unionize — and what listeners in and beyond Turkey can do to show solidarity. English and Turkish translations are provided by Burcu Ayan of the IUF (the International Union of Food, Agricultural, Hotel, Restaurant, Catering, Tobacco and Allied Workers’ Associations).

For a limited time:

Donate $20 or more to In These Times and we'll send you a copy of Let This Radicalize You.

In this new book, longtime organizers and movement educators Mariame Kaba and Kelly Hayes examine the political lessons of the Covid-19 pandemic and its aftermath, including the convergence of mass protest and mass formations of mutual aid. Let This Radicalize You answers the urgent question: What fuels and sustains activism and organizing when it feels like our worlds are collapsing?

We've partnered with the publisher, Haymarket Books, and 100% of your donation will go towards supporting In These Times.

Maximillian Alvarez is editor-in-chief at the Real News Network and host of the podcast Working People, available at InThe​se​Times​.com. He is also the author of The Work of Living: Working People Talk About Their Lives and the Year the World Broke.

Get 10 issues for $19.95

Subscribe to the print magazine.