Interview with BTS President Bülent Çuhadar on the privatization of TCDD

Interview with BTS President Bülent Çuhadar on the privatization of TCDD
"To protect our institution, our business, our bread ..."
- What does the Railway Law Draft, signed at the Council of Ministers and expected to be brought to the agenda of the parliament? Can you give detailed information?
- Privatization studies on railways that have been going on for a long time are coming to an end Namely; These privatization studies, which started with the Booz Allen & Hamilton report in 1995, continued with the Canac report, a Canadian company, during this period, many services provided by the institution were started to be carried out by the private sector, businesses were closed, trains operating on unprofitable lines were discontinued and so on. many applications had already been implemented. This law means the completion of all these processes and the transfer of railway transportation to the private sector and the precariousness of the employees.
The law envisages the transfer of profitable lines and enterprises to the private sector rather than the development of railways. However, the 8252 km rail works as a single line. In addition to new roads, this single-line management must be made with double-line synyilylation.
There is no provision in the law to guarantee employees. A significant number of employees will be sent to the pool. Many staff working in the institution will be sent to other institutions as IFP (Surplus Personnel).
The law will legalize political and bureaucratic interventions. The Minister is the only determinant.
The law envisages the establishment of many committees, representatives of the ministries, institutions and private sector are included in these commissions but the representatives of the employees are not mentioned. Therefore, the law to be removed will neither develop TCDD nor be an application in favor of employees.
- Do you consider this draft law as an attack on trade union organization?
- This draft is not only an attack on union organization, but also an application that eliminates the job security of employees. To be clear, the draft was prepared by TÜRK TREN A.Ş. will take place in the sector. Since the employees will now be members of a joint stock company, they will be subject to private sector labor provisions and naturally it will be impossible to talk about job security. When combined with the decree laws targeting all public institutions of the government and considered together with the public personnel law, it should not be forgotten that the job security of all public employees will be removed.
- What do you intend to do as the BTS union against this bill?
- Our union foresaw this process years ago and struggled very seriously to prevent the Booz Allen & Hamilton and Canac reports, which I mentioned earlier, from being realized, but a serious resistance could not be organized as it had to fight alone in the sector. At this point, the last law is an attempt to eliminate railways altogether. We know from our experience that the struggle of our union alone will not be enough. For this reason, we have attempted to create a platform to fight the law jointly with other unions and associations, especially our union, organized on railways. We expressed this determination with a declaration we made public recently. As the platform created, many actions and activities are on the agenda against the plundering and liquidation of our institution, in order to prevent the job security of our employees, and we have expressed our determination to counter together.
- What do you want to say finally?
If we have a little difficulty in the memory of the AKP government came to power since the 2002 of the institutions that occupy the agenda of the railroads are coming. Unfortunately, as the government said, not only with the advancements and developments, but also with the deaths of dozens of people like Pamukova and Tavşancıl, accidents occurred more than in Tuzla shipyards and there were high speed trains that the government turned into a show. There is no other way to fight for railway workers. We call on Di railwaymen to fight all our people together for a safe rail transport. Because the people who use the railway transportation sector must know very well that privatization is not only an ideological attack but also destroys transportation security in the railway sector.