Emine decide to meet with the Deri Is union as she was unhappy with some of the conditions at the factory, in particular the excessive and mandatory overtime. She started to speak to her fellow workers about the union and began registering them as members too. In her eight years at the factory Emine had developed a reputation as diligent and good at her job, yet shortly after she started organising she received three warnings on the same day and was fired.
The day after her dismissal Emine and union representatives came to the DESA factory and demanded to meet with management. Management refused to meet with the unionists and told her to come alone if she wished to talk. Emine refused to speak to management without a representative of her union present. Since then she has been demonstrating regularly, with other union members and her children, outside the DESA factory. Such demonstrations have meant that Emine has continued to suffer harassment and intimidation from the factory and the police.
Emine has reported several incidences of harassment and intimidation and bribery by DESA management. On July 5th, two days after she as dismissed, she was offered 8.000 YTL to leave the factory and stop the demonstrations outside the factory. On Friday the 24th Of October, Emine was once again approach by a representative of the company. This time she was offered 30,000 YTL (15,000 euros) to end her resistance, drop the court case she had filed in July and to sign a paper declaring she was not fired due to her organising activity and that she had been used by the union..
When the bribery didn't work she was reminded that something could happen to her young family. Sunday afternoon, a man attempted to kidnap her eleven year old daughter as she was walking through her neighbourhood. Luckily the kidnap attempt failed and she escaped. A criminal report has now be given to the police.
As demonstrations continued at the factory DESA called on the police to prevent the distribution of leaflets at both the factory gates and the local mosque, where most workers pray each Friday. On the 19th July Desa management complained that workers were shouting slogans and intimidating other workers in the factory. Emine was arrested and fined 62 YTL for occupying the pavement, despite the fact that the front of the factory is not a public walkway. DESA workers were asked to use the service buses to use different mosques for praying, put onto buses inside the factory, and were guarded by police as they left.
