TURKEY: DESA LEATHER WORKERS FIGHT FOR THE RIGHT TO HAVE A UNION

In April 2008, hundreds of workers at Turkish leather manufacturer, DESA, which produces for Prada, Mulberry, Louis Vuitton, Samsonite, Aspinal of London, Nicole Farhi and Luella, decided to join Deri Is, the Turkish leather workers union. Since then 44 workers have been dismissed and a further 50 have been forced to resign from the union. Workers have been fighting this denial of their right to organise through daily demonstrations outside the DESA factory in the Dzce Industrial Zone, facing constant repression and arrest from the local gendarmes. Emine Arslan, a union leader from another DESA factory in Istanbul(Sefaky), was offered a bribe to drop her case against DESA and to end the demonstrations outside the factory. When she refused, her family was threatened. Hours later her 11 year old daughter narrowly escaped an attempted kidnap by men on a motorbike.