Miners from Soma stage a sit-in protest, demanding their compensation

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The miners from Soma in Turkey's Aegean province of Manisa have been struggling for their compensation and pension right for the last five years.

They previously started a march to Ankara on October 5, 2019. Following meetings and negotiations with Şeref Kalaycı, the Deputy Minister of Energy, miners were promised that their problems would be solved with an omnibus bill and their compensation would be paid in January the latest.

However, since then, the miners have received no payment. In response to this, 100 miners have now been staging a sit-in protest in front of Soma Sub-Governor's Office since Sunday (July 19).

'We will march to Ankara if the bill is not passed'

Tahir Çetin, the Chair of Independent Miners Union, has shared the following details with bianet about the process:

"After the meetings in Ankara, we were told that the compensations would be paid with the omnibus law. Then, we visited the group deputy chairs of all political parties. They also said that they would pass the omnibus bill for the miners who could not get their due, they made a promise about it.

"We had already sent the omnibus bill to the commission. All they would do was to debate it. And they constantly stalled us. 'We will follow it up,' they said. That is why we have been sitting in protest in front of the Soma Sub-Governor's Office for 4-5 days. We said that if the omnibus bill was not passed, we would march to Ankara.

"The Parliamentary debate was held on omnibus bill yesterday, but they have not contacted us about it so far. It will be understood today whether they will pay us or not.

"1,800 people are still victims of compensation. We said that the problems of those victims across Turkey had to be solved and compensated, we are still saying this. We emphasize that the decision to be taken will be valid not only for the miners of Soma, but for all miners. We will see what our gains will be."

What happened?

After 301 miners lost their lives in Soma massacre in 2014, 2,800 miners working in the mine in Eynez and Atabacası were fired from their jobs. They were informed about their dismissal with an SMS sent by the company. Since then, they have been struggling for their rights.

They started a march to Ankara on October 5, 2019. Following meetings and negotiations with Şeref Kalaycı, the Deputy Minister of Energy, the miners were promised that they problems would be solved with an omnibus bill and their compensation would be paid in January 2020 the latest. (SO/SD)