Belching Out the Devil

by Mark Thomas

  I finish the Turkish apple tea, and as I get up to say good bye it dawns on me that our man here is one of those rare people whose Ralph Steadman portrait would actually look prettier than the subject.

  Yet while sitting in judgement, like some south-London Solomon, I have been equally delusional. I have gently sipped the sweetness of my tea and appreciated its fine apple aroma. I have dangled my tea glass by its rim between my finger and thumb, gesticulating with it like a contemplative sophisticate. Yet it turns out this traditional Turkish apple tea is neither, tea, apple, nor indeed traditional; it is made of a bright pink powdered concoction, that was invented by a pharmaceutical company and marketed to tourists. Indeed, it is Turkish only in the sense that powdered milk is traditionally English. More than that, the tea has enough sugar in it to make my man boobs go up a cup size at the mere thought of it. In short this Turkish apple tea is about as natural as ketamine, as healthy as a sherbet dab and I would be shocked if real fruit has been anywhere near the production process.

  And to cap it all, do you know how I found this out? The drummer from Turkey’s entry in the 2008 Eurovision Song Contest told me! I have been tutored in cultural authenticity by a man who aspires to be liked by Terry Wogan. Oh the post-modernism of it all…

  It came about because Jess the photographer was to ply her trade, photographing an interview with a Turkish rock band called Mor Ve Otesi. Unfortunately the journalist who was to do the interview dropped out at the last minute.

  ‘You should do it,’ she said.

  ‘I don’t know who they are.’

  ‘So? They’ll tell you who they are.’

  ‘Why interview a band I know nothing about?’

  ‘Because they were going to perform at RocknCoke...’?.>

  ‘What?’

  ‘Big festival. The biggest in Istanbul, sponsored by Coca-Cola and they pulled out of it.’

  ‘Oh great. I can see the headline, “Obscure Rock Band Snub Sponsor Shock!”’

  ‘No the point is that…’

  ‘Or maybe “Coca-Cola hardly notice as Turkish band don’t take their money sensation!”’

  ‘No, there is more to it than that.’

  And then she told me that the group who turned down Coca-Cola’s gig were none other than Turkey’s entry for the 2008 Eurovision Song Contest. The Cliff Richard of Istanbul, the Turkish Brotherhood of Man, the Katrina and the Waves of the Orient turned down Coca-Cola’s moolah…And that extra sequin, well that puts a whole different set of goggles on the story for me.

  On arriving at their office the band are far more hospitable than a bumbling ignoramus deserves. Lead Singer, a balding, skinny thirty-something in a white jumper asks, ‘Do you know who we are?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Have you heard our music before?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Do you know anything about us?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Would you like a drink?’

  ‘Yes, that would be lovely.’

  Drummer, who has cropped short hair and a goatee that can only be described as jazz-wizard style, says ‘I’ll get some albums for you to have.’

  He disappears for a moment then re-emerges with Bass Player, who is suitably adorned with floppy hair, and is clutching a fistful of CDs for me.

  We drink and chat, and I learn that Mor Ve Otesi have been around for a few years, are a respected rock band, with a string of albums and whose members work on the Turkish anti-war organising committee. Not your normal Eurovision fare but as Lead Singer points out, ‘Turks take Eurovision very seriously.’

  ‘Which is not something I understand coming from Britain,’ I say, ‘we just put anything up for it.’

  ‘We noticed,’ he replies.

  I also learnt that the first RocknCoke festival in Istanbul was held in 2003 and the line-up included the Pet Shop Boys, Simple Minds, Suede and the Dead Kennedys.

  ‘And just a few Turkish acts…’ said Drummer.

  ‘…Four Turkish acts, and we were asked to be one of them. We said “why not?”’ adds Lead Singer.

  The band were touring at the time and on returning to the capital, ‘We heard that there was a global campaign that started with what happened in Colombia,’ says Lead Singer, ‘we decided not take part in this festival and we decided to take part in Rock for Peace.’

  ‘That was seen as a big success for the alternative festival,’ says Drummer, ‘as we were perceived as a band coming from the other side.’

  So I promise to listen to the music, thank them for having me and put my notebooks in the rucksack. Drummer kindly waits to see me out and while we head to the office door I mention that it seems fitting that Coca-Cola, the outriders of globalisation, should reap global disapprobation. If the image of a brand can travel from Atlanta to Istanbul, then criticisms of it can likewise arrive from Bogota. As the brand travels the world, negative stories can stick to the logo. So, I conclude, when people ask how can I challenge a brand as big as Coke, we can reply that it starts by individuals learning to look past the PR image.

  Drummer nods, standing at the open door and as we exchange pleasantries he politely enquires, ‘What else have you got planned for your trip?’

  ‘Well, the one thing I do need to do is to find some traditional Turkish Apple Tea to take home.’

  ‘Erm…You do know…’ he begins.

  The Coca-Cola Company are but one of a multitude of companies that shape the image of their brands to suit their marketing needs and in the case of apple tea I am but one of a multitude of consumers prepared to suspend reality. But the statement from our man in the patisserie that ‘there is no Coca-Cola story in Turkey,’ is a suspension of reality too far. I tracked down the ex-Coke workers I had originally come here to see and I set out for the offices of the Transport Union of Istanbul, to hear their allegations of how Coca-Cola bottlers drove down their wages with sub-contractors, sacked them for unionising and then colluded with the police who attacked them and their families. The union’s name is Nakliyat-Is, pronounced knack lee yat - eesh.

  Alpkan, the man who is going to act as my interpreter, is a lecturer. As a native of Istanbul, he told me that ‘The union is easy to find from where you are staying, just head across the bridge and up the hill…’ Directing someone to walk up the hill in Istanbul is a little like saying, ‘Oh, just follow the canal’ in Venice. In Istanbul it is impossible not to walk up a hill. Here the streets are narrow and steep, and halfway up every single hill seems to be an old man pushing a cart with an unfeasibly enormous load. I’m beginning to suspect that it is a legal requirement for steep inclines to have an old man on them.

  Fortunately the union offices are on a main road that runs under the slightly more eye-catching landmark of a huge and ancient aqueduct. Some 500 yards away uphill (naturally) is a five- maybe six-storey structure which seems to make up the entire block. Every apartment, office, warehouse, shop and storerooms exists in one extremely large building. It has the look of a Soviet construction from the 1960s, though the sight of shops stocked with actual goods for sale spoils that particular illusion. At pavement level the block’s entrance is tall wooden doors, a garland of nameplates and buzzers at their side.

  On the other side of one of these doors lies a circular stairwell encased in frosted glass, tinted a light brown with nicotine and age. The echoes of our footsteps rush up the stairs before us to the second-floor landing. Here, through what looks to be an apartment door, lie the offices of Nakliyat-Is. The meeting room is a small place with a low ceiling but about sixty seats have been packed tightly together, forming five rows of chairs which all face a desk at the front of the room. Behind the desk, hanging from the wall is a red banner with yellow letters declaring, ‘Organised labour will defeat the forces of capital!’ It is as if someone had set up a union hall in a council flat living room. I wouldn’t be surprised if halfway through lively meetings there was the sound of banging from the other side of the wall and a shout of ‘Keep it down in there!
I can’t hear the bloody telly!’

  The union came into conflict with Coke in May 2005, just two months after the company in Atlanta had issued a suitably foot-shooting statement. On 15 March 2005 The Coca-Cola Company made the Great Coke Pledge and said, ‘Coca-Cola acknowledges that Coca-Cola workers are allowed to exercise rights to union membership and collective bargaining without pressure of interference. Such rights are exercised without fear of retaliation, repression or any other form of discrimination.’2 Exactly sixty-six days after the Great Coke Pledge Turkish deliverymen were sacked for organising a union. The four men sitting in front of the red banner are going to tell me the story.

  Let me introduce you to them. Behind the desk sits President Küçükosmanōlu. My translator explains that even Turks have problems pronouncing his name and so he is more often than not just called President K. He looks constantly determined and has a glare that could make a statue blink. Such is the force of his stare that I would not be surprised if there is a scientific gauge for measuring its magnitude. Today it is turned on a low setting - which would be about 2.5 on the Ayatollah Khomeini Scale. President K is a smart man, who sports a side parting and a moustache that is a classic of the region. His suit informs the room what his words confirm, that he has been in negotiations all morning. Sitting next to him is Fahrettin Takici, a lean and trim forty-nine-year-old with hair cropped close to his scalp; hunched over his chair, legs apart with his forearms leaning on his thighs. He is dressed all in black: black roll-neck sweater, black leather jacket, black trousers, all of which combine to give him the air of a loyal lieutenant. Next to him but sitting to the side of the desk is the oldest-looking man in the room, Ahmet Gakmak, whose suit is as grey as his hair. Under his jacket is a V-neck jumper with a brown and purple diamond pattern, but this description gives this garment more colour than it deserves, as it blends into the suit with an effortless ease borne of penury. Ahmet has poverty teeth, where the gaps between them tell of a life of thin wage packets. In complete contrast in front of him sits the last and youngest member of the quartet, Erol Turedi. His hair is pure Tony Curtis, his shirt crisp, his tiepin tidy, his enamel badge of the Turkish flag perfectly positioned on his lapel and his black zip-up boots are straight out of Austin Powers. And when he flashes you a cheeky smile it is the kind of grin that deserves its own theme music.

  Erol, Ahmet and Fahrettin worked for Coca-Cola Icecek, the Turkish bottling company jointly set up by the Anadolu Group in Turkey and The Coca-Cola Company in Atlanta. Coke now owns 20 per cent of CCI shares.3

  Their story starts in a manner similar to the fletero in Colombia. Originally the deliverymen worked directly for Coca-Cola Icecek and considered it a good job - then they were subcontracted, they ceased to work for Coca-Cola directly, and everything changed.

  Their new employer, the sub-contractor, was called Trakya Nakliyat Ve Ticaret Ltd STI (Trakya). The wages went down, overtime money went down and they were forced to resign from their old union, Oz-Gida Is in 2000 on the insistence of the management. The one thing that did not change was the job itself, as Erol points out, ‘We were driving the same trucks, wearing the same Coca-Cola shirts, we changed our clothes in the same place.’ In fact, according to Erol, the managers they were working under remained the same too, so not even the personnel changed. ‘They were absolutely the same people.’

  President K reiterates this point in his deep voice, ‘The relationship between [the sub-contractors] and Coca-Cola Icecek is only a bureaucratic relationship, the whole management is lead by Coke managers, [the decisions of] who to hire and who to fire were all taken by Coke managers. Coke choose the route, what brands, how much, when it was to be delivered. Everything went from Coke, even the receipts, even the paperwork was on Coke papers. The only issue that Trakya appears on is on the workers security payments [that is, the national insurance].’

  The four men telling this tale have a curious unity. They’re all distinct personalities yet they speak as one. An odd ensemble - I was going to call them a Greek Chorus but this being Turkey it’s probably best to leave the Greeks out of it. However, there is something beyond the normal workplace camaraderie here, as they finish each other’s sentences and join in together on certain refrains and sayings. It is the nearest I have seen to barbershop storytelling.

  You can see this in action when the men discuss one aspect of the story, which is that The Coca-Cola Company says that ‘the labour dispute does not directly involve the [Turkish bottlers] CCI.’4 President K starts to explain why he thinks the sub-contractors are used. ‘Consider the law in Turkey,’ he says. ‘Coca-Cola can divorce itself from any problems with the subcontractor…’

  Ahmet chips in, ‘Trakya was set up to decrease wages and stop any attempt at unionising.’

  Erol fills in some detail, ‘when we were working under Coca-Cola the wages were four times more than when we worked for the subcontractor…’ he throws his hand away in unconcealed scorn ‘…and the working conditions used to be better.’

  Ahmet starts to say, ‘When we went to the management for a wage increase the management said…’

  But Fahrettin jumps into the tale and along with Ahmet, they chant in unison the words of the manager told them, ‘Get off the job, many people would work here in these conditions.’

  Erol says nothing but his head bobs sagely and he stares at me as if to affirm the truth. President K adds a comment too, he lights a cigarette and his stony impassive face raises an eyebrow in a rare emotional outburst.

  So with pay down and overtime squeezed they quietly began to unionise the deliverymen at two of Coke’s plants in Istanbul, Dudullu and Yenibosna. Ahmet had the first clandestine meetings with President K preparing the legal work they would need to comply with. When these meetings began ‘a maximum of five people in each plant initially knew of the plans…’ confides Erol ‘…we were very careful and very secret.’

  Their caution was borne out of concern of how the management would react. They were right to be worried. On 19 May 2005, sixty-six days after the Great Coke Pledge was made public - six days after announcing their intention to form a union, they were sacked. Without any indication or warning the five union organisers were laid off. Erol and Fahrettin arrived for work at the Dudullu plant and were informed along with the three other men that they were being sacked for poor performance.5 Considering Fahrettin and Erol had recently been rewarded by the company for their good work this seems an odd reason. ‘I have many awards for being a good worker,’ Erol insists, ‘Awards the firm gave me, presents and certificates, for Best Driver.’

  Which just goes to show how complex business really is these days. Those of us not involved in the corporate world would think that the best driver would be the last driver to be sacked for poor performance. How wrong we would be. Indeed a quick study of the bonus and share options for the world’s top business executives illustrates how the system works: the more the Chief Executive Officer runs a company into the ground the more they are rewarded.

  To the untrained eye it might appear suspicious that the five men sacked for poor performance just happen to be the five main union organisers. Indeed, Erol alleges that on the day they were sacked, ‘Coke management agrees to have a meeting.’ He sits bolt upright as he continues, ‘And I stress this is the Coke management not Trakya…They meet the five of us and they say, “Why are you doing this? You have brought this action upon yourselves but still let’s talk”.’

  ‘We have unionised.’ says a friend.

  A manager replied, the delivery men could ‘[go] on working by resigning from the union.’

  According to court documents submitted in the US the union also alleges that one of the managers went on to say, ‘We, as The Coca-Cola Company, shall let no members of the union work for us.’6

  The next day, 20 May, another fifty deliverymen are sacked at Dudullu; all but a couple were members of the new union, though these non-members joined swiftly afterwards.

  Five days later on
25 May the unionised deliverymen at the Yenibosna plant were sacked too - another fifty men. Within sixty-eight days of signing up to protect and respect trade union rights Coke had overseen the sacking of over one hundred workers for joining a union. At this point I fear the gap between pronouncement and reality is so great that only the likes of Heather Mills dare brook the chasm.

  Every country in the world has its own customs, some old, some new, some cultural, some religious and some just for the tourists, but perhaps Turkey’s most enduring tradition has been the random use of excessive force at public gatherings. Though this societal norm is not exclusive to them the Turkish authorities do excel at it, thanks to the notorious police rapid deployment force called the Çevik Kuvvet. It is at this point in the union’s saga that these same police enter the story. Now, according to human rights groups the Çevik Kuvvet is responsible for about 80 per cent of the accusations and reports of torture and abuse committed by the Turkish security forces.7 According to Nakliyat-Is ‘Coke arranged for the Turkish Çevik Kuvvet to attack, gas, beat and arrest the union members and their families’ so as to terrorise them into accepting ‘mass terminations without further protest’.