Published: 15 Jan 2013
National Secretary Paddy Crumlin has been spearheading a campaign to support workers at DHL Turkey who are trying to unionise but have faced vicious anti-union opposition by the employer, which has fired workers and actively obstructed union organising efforts.
In a January 14th letter from Crumlin, and Joe De Bruyn, World President of UNI Global Union, to Dr. Frank Appel, the CEO of Deutsche Post AG, which owns DHL, Crumlin, and De Bruyn, reassert the strong support for the TUMTIS union.
“We are particularly concerned by the emergence of fresh evidence that at this very moment workers at DHL in Samsun, Istanbul and Ankara are indeed being forced to join a newly formed union, Tasima Is and are being threatened with dismissal. This represents nothing less than a further active effort by DHL to obstruct workers from joining a union of their own choice,” the letter states.
In addition, Crumlin and De Bruyn make clear that they will continue to pursue a case against DHL for violating the OECD Guidelines on Multinational Enterprises. “The ITF, UNI and our affiliates firmly back TÜMTIS in their campaign to organise and represent workers at DHL and will continue to monitor the development of the situation carefully,” they write.
