The layoffs at Sputnik Turkey follow demands for better pay at the Russian news agency and successful strike action at other foreign media outlets.
The Turkey bureau of Russian news agency Sputnik has fired 24 unionised journalists who decided to strike for better pay and rights after negotiations on a new collective labour agreement failed, the Journalists’ Union of Turkey, TGS, said on Monday.
“Sputnik fires our members instead of respecting their union rights and meeting their demands,” TGS said. “Stop committing crimes and get dismissed journalists back to work.”
One of the journalists, Erkin Oncan, took to Twitter to denounce the dismissals.
“From now on, we will continue on our way with the same determination,” Oncan tweeted. “This decision is unlawful; we will go back to our jobs. As we said at the very beginning of the process: “No step back” … Our strength comes from our organisation.”
Senior journalist Atilla Guner, who prepared the evening news programme on Radio Sputnik, was among those fired. Guner said the reason given was ‘downsizing’, but the journalist said it was more likely because of his support the strike action.
Sputnik Turkey did not respond to a request for comment.
Turkish law forbids action aimed at pressuring workers not to join unions or undertake industrial action, but the rate of unionisation among media workers has dropped considerably in the 21 years since Recep Tayyip Erdogan took power.
Recently, however, more Turkish journalists have seen industrial action as the only way to improve working conditions against a backdrop of low pay and shrinking media freedoms.
Strikes have been held among TGS journalists at the Istanbul office of the BBC and the Turkey offices of Reuters and Agence France Presse, resulting in new collective labour agreements.