“IUF Update”, 29 July 2020

… [I]n December 2019 and February 2020, Bursa’s District Court … confirmed that 8 of these workers were dismissed solely for their union activity. The other 4, according to the Court, were unfairly dismissed … [without] economic justification … All 12 verdicts ordered reinstatement.  

The U.S. National Contact Point (NCP) issued a Final Statement (dated March 20, 2020) following a specific instance submitted by the IUF to the U.S. NCP on August 21, 2018. The Final Statement reiterates these points stating, 

The Turkish court of appeals later ruled in favor of the remaining [8] workers and found there was anti-union discrimination…

Cargill has attempted to justify the dismissals on purely economic grounds … and went on to state that the company had sought alternative positions at Cargill for the dismissed workers, but that none could be found. 

… The new quotas by presidential decree ultimately did not take effect until September 1, 2018 – about 4.5 months after the workers were unfairly dismissed on April 17, 2018.

All these dismissals at Cargill violate core ILO Conventions 87 and 98, which protect workers' rights to freedom of association, to organize and to engage in collective bargaining….

Four new permanent workers were hired at the factory in December 2019 and at least 5 additional new permanent production jobs have been added since the beginning of 2020 in departments in which the dismissed workers had previously worked…

Cargill continues to refuse to discuss rehiring the workers it dismissed in April 2018…