Forum: Labour shares their struggles and experiences from US to Turkey
There was a visitor from the US who gave a talk about the situation in the American workers. Her talk and the translation lasted about an hour. Basically in centered on the role of leadership in the working class both historically and today. She began with the history of the American Federation of Labor and worked though to the period of the crisis in American capitalism and the role of the union leaders and their sell out policies. Carol Lang : Union activist,Internationalist,Socialist
Forum ended with the speaker talking about the need to build a revolutionary leadership in the working class. There were lots of questions, too many to answer since other people wished to make reports about their workplaces. At the end of the meeting many people agreed to email the speaker with further questions.
There were about 20 people, mostly political. There was an education worker (teacher) who was building a network who worked within the union but for the most part explained that the bureaucrats were sell-outs and therefore was building this network outside of the union. When asked by Lang, the visitor, why not put a newsletter together and operate inside the union to demand that the charter schools be organized he said they were operating within the union as well. An education worker from EIMA (Education Workers Struggle Network)
A construction worker from Safir Tower Struggle
A construction worker spoke about the difficulties or forcing the bosses to pay fair wages and spoke about how difficult it was to organize the workforce and how frustrated he was about the terrible working conditions and how he hoped that this group could help him at the end of his talk. Lang suggested that the people attended the forum form a committee to help get a webpage off the ground to begin his organizing campaign. People stressed the fact that there wasn't much of a union so a campaign could actually organize the workforce to pressure the old leadership to leave.
A Computer Engineer from BICDA (Information Workers Solidarity Network)
A Computer co. worker from Casper Struggle
Another information worker talked about building a network which would organize information workers. He told that they were building a network without any hierarchy and they were working for the rights of the information workers in their workplaces. When Lang asked what the purpose of this organization was a person in the room also wished to know if he wanted to turn this organization into a union. It seemed that this group was still in formation and therefore there was nothing definitive that the group hoped to accomplish.
A computer co. worker explained that the company he worked for was firing people who wanted to form a union and were therefore out on strike. 6 people were fired and had set up an encampment in the park outside in the park. 70 people out of 185 workers supported the union and the support among the workers continued to grow. Lang asked about taking the struggle to the umbrella group that incorporates all of the unions. He argued that he had enough support from his organization (CP) and some other union.
The conversations around all of these issues was lively and thoughtful. Most people gave very considered opinions about the issues being discussed. The meeting lasted around 4 hours. And finally, the speaker from the States asked whether people felt it would be better to encourage the Turkish working class to take up the question of the Kurds, or should they elect Kurds (PKK) to parliament and allow that to be the route to democratization of Turkey. A very lively, heated discussion followed.