İDO sacks organizing seafarers
İDO (İstanbul Deniz Otobüsleri A.Ş.) was founded by Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality in order to provide sea transportation. Tender by Municipality privatized IDO in 2011. The company was sold to TASS (Tepe-Akfen-Souter-Sera) consortium, which predominantly consists of a foreigner company Souter Investments that has investments in England and New Zealand.
New owner of the company changed working conditions after the privatization. 24 hours work 24 hours rest working system was put in force instead of 24 hours work 48 hours rest in order to increase efficiency and to decrease the cost. Our six members, opposed to hard working conditions, were fired.
İDO operates on 19 lines, and serving 32 points with 53 ships in sea transportation, means more than one hundred million passengers per year. 37 fast ferries and 150 masters and chief engineers working o/b them are directly affected by the change in working system.
DAD-DER (Marine Employee’s Solidarity Association) calls you to condemn attacks against organizing in unions in Turkey. We want you to send this protest letter to associated companies, of which mail addresses are listed below.
“We are sending this letter to express our solidarity with IDO workers in their struggle against bad working conditions on board IDO ships. We condemn your attacks against organizing seafarers although organizing is a constitutional right. Moreover, trade off between people’s safety and cost is unacceptable. Safety of both passengers and seafarers cannot be risked for increasing efficiency and decreasing cost. We urge you to reconsider the situation and reinstate seafarers and also accept demands of seafarers immediately.
Yours sincerely,”
