Page 54 - KAZOVA - ENGLISH

marched with a banner proclaiming that “Kazova workers are not
alone”.

“We won’t let Umit Somuncu take away our rights, we don’t
want charity, we want our rights we are workers, we are right, we
will win, long live our Kazova resistance” were the slogans they

chanted as they approached the factory, where they saw that Rapid
Reaction and plainclothes police had the street blockaded. TOMA
vehicles and buses with Rapid Reaction police waited in two side
streets. This statement was made in front of the factory:

“Umit Somuncu and Mustafa Umut Somuncu, the bosses of
Kazova Trikotaj, a firm of which it is boasted that its roots go back
65 years, made no statement but took away our rights and de-

parted. Since February 27 to get our rights back we have marched
and read out press statements. On numerous occasions we have
tried to get them to talk to us but they have always fled. Finally,
to prevent material being removed from the factory, we set up a
tent on 29 April. We have spoken to new owners called Perzoni,
to whom the factory was sold. We said that we would not go with-
out getting our rights and we stick by this to the end.”

Later Nakliyat-Is General Secretary Ali Riza Kucukosmanoglu

spoke, saying we are behind the honourable struggle of the Kazova
workers. The police who have waited in front of the factory today
ought to be after Umit Somuncu. He called on workers in the
neighbourhood “to support them and not remain indifferent, be-
cause what happened to them could happen to you”.

Emekli-Sen Kadikoy branch secretary Yalcin Vural, speaking
on behalf of Emekli-Sen, said:

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