"Miners cannot celebrate their day as long as the exploitation of resources and slave-like, to death working conditions continue," Gürkan said on the occasion of World Miners' Day on 4th December.

Gürkan says that mineral resources and enterprises in Turkey are also presented as gift to monopolies. “Mineral exploration and operation licenses are distributed while ignoring agricultural areas, water basins, pastures, forests, natural habitats where historical and cultural assets are located. This licensing causes irreparable environmental disasters."

Gürkan stated that long working hours, low wages, insecurity, lack of unionism and malnutrition and slavery conditions were imposed in the mines, and that nearly 70 miners died at work in 2021 in mining enterprises that lack worker health and safety measures.

"301 in Soma, 30 in Karadon, 19 in Küre, 19 in Mustafa Kemalpaşa, 18 in Ermenek, 18 in Gediz, 17 in Dursunbey, 16 in Sirvan, 11 in Collolar, 8 in Aşkale, 8 in Kozlu... at least 1890 miners died in mines during the years of the AKP reign. By transferring responsibility for the massacres of workers to either workers or the responsible engineers, companies and the government find ways to wash their hands of their crimes" says Gürkan, adding that the publicly owned mining and coal enterprises have been privatized and the assets of the enterprises robbed.

Saying that they do not accept the exploitation of mineral and coal resources and the slave-like conditions of labour underground and above ground, Gürkan celebrated mine workers’ 4 December World Miners' Day. (EVRENSEL DAILY)