Cumhuriyet Chief Editor resigns ‘amid pressure to force editors to resign from union’
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Ahead of the negotiations for the collective labor agreement between the Cumhuriyet newspaper and the Journalists' Union of Turkey (TGS), Cumhuriyet Editor-in-Chief Aykut Küçükkaya has resigned.
Küçükkaya has announced that Cumhuriyet Foundation Chair Alev Coşkun pressured him into forcing the editors to resign from the TGS.
According to Küçükkaya, "the issue came to the point of 'Either your colleagues will resign or you will step down as the editor-in-chief'." Aykut Küçükkaya has indicated that he has submitted his letter of resignation to the Cumhuriyet Foundation for this reason.
The written statement of Aykut Küçükkaya has also been shared on the Twitter account of Cumhuriyet newspaper.
Recalling that "he was unanimously elected by the executive board members as the Editor-in-Chief of the Cumhuriyet newspaper at the foundation meeting held on September 7, 2018," Küçükkaya has expressed his "honor and pride" in fulfilling this duty for three years.
Sharing details about the process leading up to his resignation, Küçükkaya has said that "earlier this week, Cumhuriyet Foundation Chair Alev Coşkun pressured him into making the editorial staff resign from the union and having such talks with them ahead of the collective labor agreement negotiations to be held with the Journalists' Union of Turkey (TGS)."
Reiterating that "the issue came to the point of 'Either your colleagues will resign or you will step down as the editor-in-chief'," Aykut Küçükkaya has said that "in the face of this attitude which does not suit the values defended by Cumhuriyet Newspaper and is against labor and union, he has opted for his editorial team, his all colleagues making great efforts for Cumhuriyet and the union, which has come to be identified with his newspaper Cumhuriyet."
Accordingly, as of yesterday (July 29), Aykut Küçükkaya stepped down as the Cumhuriyet Editor-in-Chief and resigned from the Cumhuriyet newspaper, where he had been working for 27 years.
TGS makes a call to Cumhuriyet
After Aykut Küçükkaya announced that he resigned amid pressure to force the editorial staff to resign from the union, the TGS has released a written statement containing the signatures of the TGS workers.
Addressed to the Cumhuriyet Foundation's executive board, the TGS letter has demanded that the board not accept the resignation of Küçükkaya and asked for an end to the attempts of deunionization, which does not suit the establishment, main agreement and values of Cumhuriyet." (HA/SD)
