The 20-year privileged holding order: 'Profit guarantees' for the holding, 'incitement to hatred and hostility' charges for the worker...

Mehmet Özdağ

Electronics Engineer - Yeni Parti Samsun Provincial Chair

The struggle waged by the Bağımsız Maden-İş Union for every penny owed to miners who have not received salaries for months, whose leave rights have been usurped, and who have now been detained, as well as the inhumane treatment they have suffered during this process, continues before the eyes of the public.

We explained the mechanism behind this struggle in our article titled "Market without public guarantee, worker without salary":

"Doruk Madencilik, which operates the Yunus Emre Thermal Power Plant, has been unable to pay salaries for months, is forced to stop plant production without a fixed-price sales contract, and the company is waiting for guaranteed purchases from the state."

The point we have reached today shows that this article was not a warning, but a diagnosis. Another statement by the Bağımsız Maden-İş Union clearly reveals that the issue is not limited to a single enterprise:

"Yıldızlar SSS Holding has been nurtured by the Ministry of Energy for 20 years and has been allowed to plunder the country. In Nesko, Doruk, Yunus Emre Thermal, Eti Gümüş, Yıldız Bakır, KMK Madencilik, Söğüt Seramik, OEDAŞ, and Kay Süt enterprises across the country, the same holding has robbed workers, the public, tradespeople, and municipalities."

The statement describes a pattern that repeats the same situation in nine different sectors and nine different geographies. The holding, founded by Sebahattin Yıldız in 2005, actually grew right in the middle of the privatization wave of the 2000s. They took over all of the ceramic facilities in Söğüt in 2003 and Eti Gümüş A.Ş. in 2004 through privatization. In the 2010s, they entered the energy sector and also took over Osmangazi Elektrik Dağıtım A.Ş., which carries out electricity distribution in five provinces, through privatization. Today, the holding holds approximately 2,364 mining licenses granted with public resources. This is not a company that grew by chance; it is a structure that has been nurtured by systematically using the state's privatization and licensing mechanisms.

And who is paying the bill for this growth has been openly seen in the last month. On July 18, Eti Gümüş and Doruk Madencilik workers in Elazığ started a protest to demand their salaries, which had not been paid for five to eight months, and their usurped leave rights. On August 10, approximately 82 miners seeking their rights in front of the Ministry of Energy were stopped by police at a metro station in Ankara and held in detention for five hours. On August 13, during the protest in front of the ministry, 82 miners, including union organizing expert Başaran Aksu and union president Gökay Çakır, were detained; union lawyer Lütfi Sabri Batı said the detentions targeted workers planning to participate in a political rally. On August 15, almost all of the workers were released, but as this article was being prepared, Başaran Aksu is still being held in detention on charges of "incitement to hatred and hostility."

The slogan chanted by the released workers in front of the ministry already states the essence of the matter: "The Ministry will be held accountable to the people." The union's demand has also gone beyond salary payments; the nationalization of Yıldızlar SSS Holding is also being requested. This is not a demand to be taken lightly; a union is clearly declaring that the employer it is organized under was nurtured by the state and that the problem must be corrected by the state.

The Chamber of Electrical Engineers' 2024-2025 Energy Report shows that this picture is not just about the mismanagement of a single company, but is the structural character of the sector. The report states, "privatization here has become not only a transfer of ownership but also a form of redistribution of risk and cost." Concrete data confirms this. The loss-leakage rates that should have been reached by the end of 2015 could not be reached even in 2025; the share of fires caused by electrical infrastructure in forest fires increased from 7 percent in 2013 to 27 percent in 2021; the guaranteed purchase price (YEKDEM) for renewable energy producers increased by 37.93 percent in 2024 compared to the previous year. The rate of consumers who can effectively exercise their right to be a free consumer remained at only 3.7 per thousand, despite the market being theoretically 93.6 percent open. While the promise of competition remained on paper, guarantee mechanisms effectively worked in favor of capital.

It is no coincidence that the company of the Yunus Emre Thermal Power Plant, which says "I cannot produce without a fixed-price contract," and Eti Gümüş, which has not been able to pay its workers' salaries for eight months, belong to the same holding. The same model produces the same result. This capital group, which cannot survive without state guarantees, passes the bill to the worker, the public, tradespeople, and municipalities until it receives the guarantee. The fact that the Ministry of Energy continues to grant new licenses, new tenders, and new "guaranteed purchase" contracts to a company it has been feeding this model for twenty years is not a mistake, but a choice.

While Başaran Aksu is in detention, public-guaranteed capital transfer to Yıldızlar Holding continues. As long as this dark order of the AKP—which considers the worker's struggle for rights as "incitement to hatred and hostility" while continuing to provide public guarantees to its crony company—does not change, there is no longer any point in asking "why this company does not pay its workers."

News Source: 12punto