{"id":70378,"date":"2013-05-15T09:56:28","date_gmt":"2013-05-15T06:56:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/?p=70378"},"modified":"2014-01-08T11:45:03","modified_gmt":"2014-01-08T09:45:03","slug":"strike-looms-at-turkeys-top-airline","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/2013\/05\/15\/strike-looms-at-turkeys-top-airline\/","title":{"rendered":"Strike looms at Turkey’s top airline"},"content":{"rendered":"

(CNN) — Turkey’s flagship airline is facing the threat of a strike after negotiations with the country’s main aviation workers union collapsed.<\/p>\n

\"Turkish
Turkish Airlines aircraft parked at the Ataturk Airport in Istanbul, March 16, 2013.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The head of the Turkish Civilian Aviation Union, or Hava-Is, said the strike against Turkish Airlines would go into effect at 3 a.m. local time Wednesday.<\/p>\n

“All of Turkish Airlines’ functions will stop, no passenger flights, no cargo services, no connecting flights,” Hava-Is president Atilay Aycin said in a phone interview with CNN.<\/p>\n

“All sectors starting with the tourism industry who are doing business with Turkish Airlines will be affected,” Aycin added.<\/p>\n

Hava-Is says it represents 14,000 Turkish airlines workers.<\/p>\n

Turkish Airlines published a statement Tuesday, acknowledging that its management failed to reach an agreement on a labor dispute “due to uncompromising and imposing approaches of the Union.”<\/p>\n

The airline urged its employees to “disregard” the proposed strike. It also accused Hava-Is of “trying to plunge Turkish Airlines and its employees into an indefinite strike adventure which will benefit nobody.”<\/p>\n

Hava-Is’ leadership says it is has been negotiating salaries and rest periods for long flights, which the union’s president says do not meet international standards.<\/p>\n

Though recently privatized, Turkish Airlines is 49% government-owned. Its fleet of airplanes and schedule of routes have expanded dramatically in the last decade, as Turkey has enjoyed a period of solid economic growth.<\/p>\n

The Turkish government has developed a pattern of using the airline as an extension of Turkey’s “soft power.” The airline has extended routes to new countries, in conjunction with bilateral diplomatic overtures from Ankara.<\/p>\n

But the airline has also been caught up in the culture wars that frequently pit Turkey’s ruling pious Muslim elite against more secular segments of Turkish society.<\/p>\n

This month, Turkish Airlines attracted international attention when the company announced it was banning certain shades of lipstick and nail polish among flight attendants.<\/p>\n

Turkish flight attendants see red over lipstick policy<\/p>\n

Outrage spilled into social media and newspaper columns, as secular critics accused the airline’s management of imposing conservative religious values on the company.<\/p>\n

A similar uproar emerged after the company announced it would stop serving alcohol on a number of domestic and international routes.<\/p>\n

via Strike looms at Turkey’s top airline – CNN.com.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

(CNN) — Turkey’s flagship airline is facing the threat of a strike after negotiations with the country’s main aviation workers union collapsed. The head of the Turkish Civilian Aviation Union, or Hava-Is, said the strike against Turkish Airlines would go into effect at 3 a.m. local time Wednesday. “All of Turkish Airlines’ functions will stop, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":83,"featured_media":70379,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[846],"tags":[589],"class_list":["post-70378","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business","tag-thy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70378","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/83"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=70378"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70378\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/70379"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=70378"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=70378"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=70378"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}