Thousands of Istanbul electricity workers launch wildcat strike
Thousands of workers at Boğaziçi Elektrik Dağıtım AŞ (Bedaş), a company distributing electricity to the European side of Istanbul, went on a wildcat strike on Friday. They are defying an official ban on strike activity in the electricity sector, to oppose poverty wages imposed by a contract negotiated with a pro-company union.
The great fear of the Turkish government, Bedaş and the Tes-İş union is that this will inspire other workers, in Turkey and internationally, to oppose deadly “herd immunity” policies and mounting poverty and social inequality amid the global COVID-19 pandemic. The strike highlights the significance of the International Committee of the Fourth International’s (ICFI) launching of the call for an International Workers’ Alliance of Rank-and-File Committees (IWA-RFC).