Çağrı-İş Union is reporting that Telus Digital has fired roughly 30 workers in Türkiye – including union supporters – this week. The firings come in the wake of the business process outsourcing (BPO) company dismissing 15 union backers in previous months.
In Turkiye, Telus provides content moderation for TikTok among other services. Globally, the company counts social media and tech giants, such as Alphabet, as its largest clients.
In response to the firings, Cihan Sezer, President of Çağrı-İş Union, said:
“Telus workers, who are mostly TikTok moderators, are organizing in the face of union busting to fight back against inhumane working conditions, low wages, mobbing and intense workloads. Taking advantage of legal loopholes in Türkiye, the company not only prolonged the union’s contract negotiation process, but it has attacked the union’s existence by dismissing workers on unjust grounds. Çağrı-iş Union and Telus workers will not give in to these unlawful practices. We will continue our struggle for decent working conditions and wages.”
The union will protested outside the company’s Izmir location on 15 March.
UNI Global Union is the trade union federation for content moderators and BPO workers worldwide. Christy Hoffman, General Secretary of UNI, said:
“Telus content moderators endure daily trauma, screening highly disturbing content to protect the public. Their right to organize for better conditions must be respected, not punished. But responsibility for these violations extends beyond Telus and beyond Türkiye. Its clients – companies like TikTok and Alphabet – profit directly from this labour and must take responsibility for ending the unacceptable working conditions they’ve helped create.”