On September 6th, 10 workers were killed in a construction site in Istanbul, Turkey when the elevator carrying them plunged to the ground from the 32nd floor at the construction site of Torunlar Center, an ultra-luxurious residence and office complex owned by Torunlar Group. Workers stated that they had been complaining about elevators malfunctioning recently but Torunlar Group continuously ignored these warnings.
It is not the first time that workers have fallen to their death at this construction site. Earlier in April, a 19-year-old worker, Erdogan Polat also died when the rope of the basket carrying him snapped, plunging him down 15 floors. After an official inspection which concluded that critical safety measures were lacking in the construction site, the company was issued a fine of 6,700 Turkish Liras, about $3,000. The death of Erdogan Polat did not make it to the mainstream newspapers as Torunlar Group essentially bribed them into ignoring this story by paying them huge amounts of money for ads.
Police attacks protesting construction workers
The day after the death of the workers at Torunlar Center, the mourning fellow workers gathered for a protest in front of the construction site. The police put up barricades to protect the construction site from the protesting workers and as the workers were chanting slogans such as “Murderer Erdoğan,” they were attacked by the police with plastic bullets and tear gas.
AKP’s 12 year rule is a continuous attack on the workers
During its twelve year rule since 2002, under Erdoğan’s leadership, AKP has put into effect cut-throat neo-liberal policies characterized by the ruthless privatization of all national resources, state owned enterprises, coupled by a massive attack on workers’ rights and unions and the institutionalization of subcontracting jobs, resulting in the super-exploitation of workers in work conditions reminiscent of the 19th century.
Torunlar Group is owned by Aziz Torun, a very close friend of Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, the current President of Turkey and the former Prime Minister from the Justice and Development Party (AKP). Aziz Torun is one of those capitalists whose fortune skyrocketed during AKP’s rule as he has been awarded major construction and privatization projects by government officials. In the last ten years, the revenue of Torunlar Group rose from 50 million to over 600 million Turkish Liras.
Turkey, ranked among the worst countries for workers by ITUC
As of 2014, the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) ranked Turkey among the worst countries for workers. According to Makbule Sahan, a Human and Trade Union Rights Officer at ITUC, “The widespread use of labor subcontracting is one of the reasons for the decline in workplace safety, as subcontractors fail to provide the necessary training or equipment to workers and refuse to observe occupational health and safety measures in the workplace,”
With this latest massacre of workers in Istanbul, the number of workers in Turkey who have been killed at work has reached 1270 in the first eight months of 2014.
In this recent incident as well as previous incidents like Soma last May, where hundreds of miners died following an explosion in a private mine, it was the capitalists’ thirst for profit that actually killed these workers as in their frenzy to reduce costs and maximize profits, they chose not to put in place safety measures, an issue of life and death for workers, whether at a construction site or a coal mine.
The Communist Party released a statement on the recent events which said: “They want us to get used to living with the market fascism so that the bosses keep getting richer and AKP continues to strengthen its brutal dictatorship. We will not accept this. We will bring to justice the capitalists and their dictator and when justice is served, it will be the dictatorship of AKP that plunges to its death, not the workers!”
Workers all over the world will continue to pay with their sweat and blood as they are ruthlessly exploited by capitalists. It is time we overthrow this rotten and corrupt system, capitalism. It is time we send it to where it belongs, the dustbin of history, and replace it with socialism.
