Movie Industry Workers Stand-up for Rights

Turkey’s Cinema Workers Union (SINE-SEN) has called on workers in the nation’s film and television sectors to sign a “Team Agreement” demanding major improvements in working conditions, ranging from ending the use of uninsured labor to protecting women on stage from harassment.

The union is to launch a “No work without unions or insurance” campaign to be on September 15 which is supported by its umbrella organization, the Revolutionary Workers Unions Confederation of Turkey (DISK).

SINE-SEN chairman Yusuf Nimet Cetin warned on Thursday in a meeting held in Istanbul with wide participation of leading unions and associations, that if the conditions of the 18-point Agreement were not met by employers afterwards, workers would then walk out.

Cetin told the “Restructuring of the working life in the cinema sector” meeting that the most important articles of the agreement prepared by his union were as follows:

* Cinema workers will not be forced to work more than 10 hours a day, 60 hours a week

* Where conditions require work more than this, workers will be paid overtime

* No one will be employed without being insured

* Payments per-series will be abolished, weekly payments will be introduced instead

* Pre and post production work carried out without pay will be regarded as part of the working hours and paid for weekly.

The “Team Agreement” also introduces measures that will protect women who work on film and television sets from harassment. Accordingly, where women are subject to behavior in contrast to public moral values or sexually harassed, they will be paid a certain penalty fixed by the agreement by whoever carries out that behavior and according to the working law their employment will be terminated.

Cetin: Enforce it or they’ll stop working

Cetin said that special articles in the agreement aimed to restructure working conditions in the country’s cinema and television industries but warned that if employers did not abide by these, “cinema workers will leave their jobs”.

He noted that television companies had increased the production of series, films and documentary films but that "the mutual problems of the production companies making these products and those people working on them increased”.

Saying that in violation to legislation related to working life, exploitation of labor still continued in this sector and added that under pressure from television companies producers were not raising their voice. He said it was inevitable to restructure the working life in the industry because of these.

Celebi: These demands are their rights

DISK chairman Suleyman Celebi who also attended the meeting stressed that SINE-SEN had been involved in defending the right of cinema workers since 1978.

Celebi said DISK supported the SINE-SEN campaign and added, "our artists and laborers are being isolated, coming face to face with the struggle of staying alive in view of the ruthless rules of the market while being declared as pests of the 21st century. This demand is the most natural right of our laborers and artists”. (AD/TK/II/YE)