Open World Conference of Workers

Turkey

Presentation by Sabri Topcu, President of the Transport Workers Union (TUMTIS) of Turkey, to the February 13 plenary session of the Open World Conference

I come from Turkey. I am the president of the Transport Workers Union of Turkey. I am also a member of the National Executive Committee of the party of Labour in Turkey.

I hope this conference will raise the level of international solidarity between working peoples in all our countries. Listening to the speakers from different countries, we see once again that we are faced with similar problems and similar kinds of attacks all over the world.

So, too, in Turkey there are increased attacks on workers' and trade union rights, and freedoms are restricted. The governments are trying to create a disorganised society. They are implementing the impositions of the IMF, and the World Bank - the instruments of international capital.

Privatisation is high on the agenda in Turkey. The most basic rights of people, the rights to dissent, are being taken away from them. Despite a huge demonstration of 500,000 workers in Ankara, the capital city, the government covertly passed the legislation to destroy the social security system and increase the age of retirement.

The legislation was passed immediately after the devastating earthquake, which caused the death of more than 40,000 people. The earthquake victims were not given any help from the government. On the contrary, the government hindered or confiscated the aid received from outside the country or inside the country.

Recently, the government passed another piece of legislation on international arbitration. This is designed to facilitate the implementation of the MAI (Multinational Agreement on Investments), thereby destroying national sovereignty and opening up the country to unlimited imperialist plunder.

Against all these attacks - nationally or internationally - there is evidence that the workers' struggles are on the rise. However, the trade union bureaucrats are trying to pacify the workers' movements. For these reasons, the trade unionists, democrats, intellectuals and socialists who are on the side of the working class. are faced with a big task. We have to unite with the workers, educate them about the cruelty of the new world order, draw them into the struggle against imperialism, and organise them against the capitalist system and for the struggle for socialism.

We must politicise the workers, and help them to establish their own class party.

This will also help to break the influence of trade union bureaucrats, who are working for the interests of capital.

We must work to raise the level of class struggle in our own countries. We must aim to take the working class to political power. This is where international solidarity becomes even more important. I hope this conference will be a step forward in this direction, and in realising the unity and solidarity of the working class against capitalism and imperialism.

Long live the unity of the workers! Long live international workers' solidarity!