BTS members who walked from Balıkesir to Ankara came to Afyonkarahisar

BTS members, who walked from Balıkesir to Ankara, came to Afyonkarahisar: BTS members who took a walk from Balıkesir to Ankara to avoid TCDD's privatization reached Afyonkarahisar.

Members of the United Transport Workers Union (BTS), who walked from Balıkesir to Ankara in order not to privatize TCDD, came to Afyonkarahisar.

The group that came to Afyonkarahisar Train Station was welcomed by CHP Afyonkarahisar Provincial Chairman Yalçın Görgöz and representatives of various non-governmental organizations.

The group members protested TCDD's privatization efforts by shouting slogans here.

BTS Secretary General Hasan Bektas, who made a press statement on behalf of the group, said that hundreds of staff were retired with the arrangements made for the transfer of the personnel to retirement.

Stating that the number of employees has been reduced by 1995 percent since the 35s, Bektaş said:

“As a result of the decrease in the number of employees, subcontracting has rapidly become widespread in the production of railway services, and a flexible and unregulated working life has been introduced. In this process, while the operational safety of the railways lost its reliability more than ever and there were major fatal accidents, occupational accidents in mines, construction industry, shipyards, industrial sites and factories turned into massive work murders.

The upcoming period will be a process in which the coming period will be even more troublesome in many aspects, there will be many problems regarding working conditions and their acquired rights will be damaged. Therefore, in the light of all these facts, we took this decision to march under the name of 'we are marching against the privatization practices of the railways' in order to create public opinion, inform the society and show our reaction to the negative conditions we are in.