Turkish Airlines employees began a continious action against the draft law that banned airline strikes and the threat of dismissal for the employees who did not attend to flights yesterday on the grounds that they were ill.

10 deputies of Justice and Development Party (AKP) presented the draft law to Parliament, which proposed to ban airline strikes and lockout in the aviation sector. When the Turkish Airlines employees who are members of Turkish Civil Aviation Union (Hava-İş) heard this, they did not attend to flights on the grounds that they were ill. They used their right not to work from 3 am in the morning till midnight on May 29th and 120 flights were canceled.

Transport Minister Binali Yıldırım denounced the strike, saying authorities would "not hesitate to take necessary measures" to bring it to an end.

THY announced that they'd called 200 employees and told them that they have been fired; however Hava-İş stated that the company didn't have such a right. Currently, no one is officially fired.

THY employees will 'chat' in solidarity at the entrance of the International Departures from 5am in the morning to12 at night until the draft law that banned airline strikes is withdrawn and the threat of dismissal of the employees ends.

Republican People's Party (CHP) deputies Süleyman Çelebi and Musa Çam wore "No to ban on strikes in THY" t-shirts at the Parliament today in order to support THY employees.

What had happened?

14.000 people work in THY. There has been no agreement in collective negotiations ongoing between the union and company for 18 months. According to the law, it's forbidden to strike as long as the contract negotiations last. The new law is banning the right to strike after the contract period. The union states the company has prolonged the contract process intentionally as they are waiting for the new law banning the right to strike. (NV)