Unification Solidarity of IBM Turkey Employees

IBM has been trying to discourage our union struggle since December 21, 2007 up until now.

Firstly, they attempted to prevent us from becoming a member of the trade union. They held  meetings and gave special speeches making many beautiful promises as to growth,  career, etc.

Later, they dismissed one of our fellows who was a senior executive attempting to ask for our rights on his own. Citing unfair and false reasons, they said, “Persons who ask for their rights will be kicked out, since we prefer working exclusively with executives who will do exactly what we want.” 

They could not achieve their goal and the march of events was the direct opposite of what they were after.
Then, they filed a lawsuit against our trade union for false and ridiculous reasons. They had the idea that they could wipe us away with the lapse of time!

We did not lose heart. We remained patient. We resisted them and we developed a sense of solidarity.  
They have now initiated a new process of appeal right at a time when we have been on the verge of hearing the legal decision in favor of us. And what’s more, this process of appeal has been started against the Ministry of Labour. They have appealed against our right that was not only introduced by the Ministry of Labour but published in the Official Gazette of the Republic of Turkey, as well! 

Impossible to understand! How can a company be in total contradiction with its own ethical values? How dare they attempt to take our rights and gains away?

On the contrary, they have made the following pleasant statements in their own book: “…IBM will respect the legal rights of its employees to join or to refrain from joining worker organizations, including labor organizations or trade unions. IBM respects the rights of employees to organize, and makes managers at all levels aware of those rights……” – IBM Policies: Freedom of association. (http://www.ibm.com/ibm/responsibility/policy11.shtml).

They have been trying to prevent us from exercising our most fundamental right which is our right to uninonize and realizing our will to develop solidarity among our fellow workers.

They have employed “union terminator” executives receiving a salary of nearly $70,000/Month. All of these executives are not only accused of baring union hostility, but they are also famous for acting as Capitalist terminators who can give employees the elbow. 
Moreover, our fellows are being dismissed one after another, they are threatened and our rights are being taken away from us one by one.

They think they can weaken us!

We, as IBM employees, have been struggling against these pressures and suppressions for over 9 months.

They have recently made inhumane injustice. They have dismissed another fellow executive yesterday (16th of October). He has been working for this company for more than 20 years! He tried to defend our acquired rights ! He questioned and didn’t allow our rights to be taken away.

These days, we cannot recognize our company any more for which we have been working for 70 years. We cannot understand what has been going on. A new mentality denying both right and law tears us to shreds.

We are asking ourselves the questions “What is happening? Where are we going?” as our fellow workers resisting injustice are given the elbow one after another, as they are exiled and as they are compelled to quit.

We are the IBM employees who are the most talented and the most skillful labor force of this country and we are not alone. We embrace not only information technology laborers across Turkey, but also all IT sector fellows, all Civil Organizationsa and Turkey’s legal trade unions.

We embrace UNI Global, Ver.di and IGMetal, all of which believe in the significance of unionization within a global world and all of which have millions of members fight for this belief.

We are global IBM employees. We are members of Aliance@IBM and EWC.And we call YOU to stop this injustice.

Our message to Mr. Palmisano;
” Your management team is acting to destroy the IBM Values, stop them and fix the problem”
If IBM does not withdraw the lawsuit filed against our legitimate unionization and if they do not put an end to unfair dismissals, we refuse to see Sam Palmisano and his guests in Istanbul for Business Leadership Forum on November 12-14.
And we announce that we will hold a global action everyday until we win !