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labour union has complained.
Dardanel, a manufacturer located in Turkey’s northwestern Canakkale province on the Dardanelles strait, notified investors of its approach to keeping its factory in operation in a July 27 stock exchange filing.
All employees would be kept under observation even during off-work hours in a “closed circuit working system,” the company said, prompting Seyit Aslan, head of labour union Gida-Is, to protest to bianet: “Dardanel workers are being held captive.”
More than 40 Dardanel workers have tested positive for COVID-19 across the past 15 days, according to Aslan, who added that the so-called “closed circuit working system” was not legal under any law and amounted to “inhumane treatment.”
Dardanel “workers are in fear and trembling,” he claimed.
Murat Ozveri, a lawyer, agreed with Aslan in telling daily Birgun that Dardanel’s “practice is against any kind of law”.
Dardanel’s “workers are only missing fetters”, union Gida-Is said in a separate written statement, calling the company plant “a concentration camp”.
The union also referred to scandalous plans to turn “medium-sized industrial zones” into “isolated production bases” amid the pandemic, which were suggested by Islamist union for businessmen MUSIAD, and to proposed social distancing electronic tracking devices that would be hung around the necks of workers, as recommended by the Turkish Metal Industrialists’ Union (MESS).
The statement on plans for continued work under quarantine was interpreted by local media as a confirmation of reports that some Dardanel workers had tested positive for COVID-19, Hurriyet Daily News reported.
“According to a decision by the Public Hygiene Board of the governor’s office in Canakkale, employees at the Dardanel factory have been put under quarantine,” hometown daily Kalem reported.
All workers would remain in company barracks within the factory complex between July 26 and August 9, the daily, added, quoting from an e-mail sent to the employees.
“All annual leave has been suspended. Unless an official medical report is handed in, all personnel are obliged to come to work. To counter the possibility of COVID-19 contraction through contact, previous isolation decisions for individuals have been lifted with the new enforcement, and they have been put
9 TURKEY Country Report August 2020 www.intellinews.com
