More than 350 agricultural workers, most of them women, employed at Queen Flowers in İzmir province, have been protesting the company over pressure to relinquish their union membership, the BirGün Daily reported.
Workers have been protesting the Danish-owned company for the past 20 days, including a demonstration in front of the Danish Embassy on May 16. They claim that after joining the United Agricultural Workers Union (Tarım-Sen), affiliated with the Confederation of Progressive Trade Unions of Turkey (DİSK), they began to face pressure and workplace bullying.
Furthermore, during salary negotiations the company offered zero wage increases for 2025 and even proposed a 27 percent cut from current wages. According to DİSK, member workers — especially union representatives — had their performance scores downgraded and were assigned to heavier and riskier tasks in terms of occupational health and safety.
The workers have been in the process of signing a collective bargaining agreement, but the employers are uneasy about DİSK’s negotiations and are pressuring the workers to stop unionizing altogether or at least find another union.
“For 20 days, we’ve been living a nightmare. We’re not safe at work or at home. Our colleagues’ homes are being visited, their families called and threatened. It’s the employer and the shuttle drivers doing this. At work, if they catch us alone, they tell us we are in the line of fire and to watch ourselves. They hover over us even during breaks. They want us to leave the union we chose,” said one female worker.
“There is zero respect for our will, our chosen union or our rights. They’re using every form of pressure, violence and threat to make us quit the union. Most recently, they gave us a deadline. If we switch to another union by June 17, they say we’ll receive a gross holiday bonus of 14,000 lira [$800]. If we stay with DİSK, they say we’ll only get 4,000 to 5,000 [$265]. This directly violates the principle of equality. I can’t describe how much our pride and dignity are being wounded. We are constantly on edge. Our colleagues’ families are in turmoil, and they cry while working. We can’t even focus on our jobs anymore. All we want is for our union rights to be respected,” said another female worker.
