Canned fish company 'takes workers hostage' after Covid-19 outbreak

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The Dardanel canned fish company in Çanakkale, northwestern Turkey, has decided to keep all of its workers in the factory for 14 days after more than 40 workers tested positive for coronavirus.

All workers of the factory, including those who were in quarantine in their homes and those on annual leave, were placed in student dormitories. Also, workers diagnosed with Covid-19 were brought to the factory with shuttles and worked.

The company's move came after the Çanakkale Governorate Provincial Public Hygiene Committee decision that said, "The personnel of the enterprise that will operate in a closed system shall be taken to the factory and then to the place they will be isolated."

We have spoken with Gıda-iş Union Chair Seyit Aslan on the decision and the workers' situation.

"Closed-circuit operation is not possible"

"Dardanel is a monopoly company producing canned fish, where nearly a thousand workers work. Over the past 15 days, more than 40 workers' Covid-19 tests were positive at the factory and these workers were quarantined at home. But it wasn't limited to that. The tests of other workers were also positive. Workers were quarantined at home as they tested positive but at the same time, disconnection occurred between [production] lines.

"After some disruptions and slowing down in production, the employer applies to the Çanakkale Governorate Provincial Public Hygiene Committee. The employee makes the application for a number of reasons such as disruption of production, problems in export, economic and commercial damage. We have heard about that.

"Then the Provincial Public Hygiene Committee convenes and gives a decision. And the employer cancels [medical] reports and leaves of everyone, including workers who tested positive for Covid and workers who were using their annual leaves or who had received a medical report for any reason, and calls them to the workplace.

"The employer says, with a closed-circuit working system, workers will continue to work in shifts and will be kept in dormitories after work. They say they will isolate workers from outside for 14 days by moving them from the dormitory to work, to the dormitory from work."

"An inhuman practice"

"We contacted lawyer friends, but we have seen that there would be no such thing as a 'closed circuit working system', and that the institution's decision was not [legally] possible. Such a thing is not possible.

"This is an inhuman and arbitrary decision.

"We also wrote to the municipality, and the Provincial Health Directorate, asking, 'According to which law you have given this decision?' There is still no answer.

"In our talks with worker friends, all of them said that they were very worried, scared and panicked.

"The employer openly says, 'It's either production or your jobs.' To those who don't accept this, they say, 'Resign and go.'

"This is very clear in the Law No. 6331: Workers have the right to avoid working, not working in case there are problems in terms of their life safety but this right has also been violated.

"The Ministry of Labor has not made any statements. There was not a meeting with workers and unions either. Workers' opinions and suggestions were not taken. We have also learned that there were no job safety specialists in the workplace. It is a decision that the employer, the Provincial Health Directorate, the governor and the ministry sat down and made.

"When a colleague called the Governorate and said 'How did you make such a decision?' he said, 'I am not a minister of health, I am not a doctor. It came to me and I signed it.' How can the governor make such a decision without examining the situation? How is this possible? This is never true, we never accept it as a union. Nearly a thousand workers were taken hostage there. They say you will either produce or produce. It's that simple.

"We will do whatever we can for the cancellation of this decision."

Parliamentary question by HDP deputy

Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) MP Oya Ersoy yesterday (July 29) submitted a parliamentary question on the issue to Minister of Family, Labor and Social Services Zehra Zümrüt Sekçuk.

Quarantining workers and forcing them to work was "drudgery," she said, adding that there was no such mechanism as "closed system working" in the Labor Law, the Law on Workers' Health and Safety and the Public Hygiene Law.

"Although the Provincial Health Director said the term 'closed system working' was previously applied regarding the works on harmful substances, the source of this information is ambiguous," she noted.

Ersoy asked the minister whether the "forced quarantine and working" of Dardanel workers would be canceled and the company would be fined.

The company's statement

The company had stated, "The measures taken to protect the health of our employees against the Covid-19 outbreak are strictly followed at our company's factory in Çanakkale. Thus, there has been no disruption in our production activities. Effective from today, the closed-circuit working system, in which our employees will be under our supervision, will be applied as a precaution for 14 days in order to prevent disruptions in our production activities."

Murat Özveri, a labor economist and a lawyer, said on Twitter that the practice was illegal and should be canceled by the ministry. According to Article 72 of the Law on Public Hygiene, he said, quarantine can be applied at homes, not at the workplace where the virus was seen.

Also, detention of ill people at workplaces was prohibited, according to Article 74, he said. (SO/VK)