A total of 1,361 miners at a coal mine in western Turkey’s Soma district will have their employment contracts terminated next month after the state-owned mine was transferred to a private company, Turkish media reported on Wednesday.
The layoffs concern workers at the Işıklar coal mine in Soma, a district in Manisa province known for Turkey’s worst mining disaster, in which 301 miners were killed in 2014.
The mine is owned by the Turkish Coal Enterprises Authority (TKİ) and had been operated under a royalty contract by Yeni Anadolu Madencilik A.Ş., a TKİ subsidiary. Yeni Anadolu recently entered liquidation, after which the mine’s operating rights were transferred to the private sector.
According to the OdaTV news website, TKİ signed a contract with Soma Kartal Kömür İşletmeleri A.Ş. on May 8 after a tender for the sale and transfer of the mining license was completed. Soma Kartal made an initial payment of 48.6 million lira, approximately $1.05 million, to TKİ for the mine.
Yeni Anadolu informed 1,361 workers that their contracts would be terminated on July 9, citing TKİ’s cancellation of the royalty contract. The company said its board had decided to end operations on that date due to economic, operational and legal reasons.
The company said workers would receive their legal entitlements and that voluntary mediation talks would be held after the termination date to secure and pay their claims in a single installment.
Başaran Aksu, an organizing specialist with the Independent Mine Workers Union, announced the development on social media, sharing documents related to the dismissals.
Although the documents he shared showed 1,361 workers were affected, Aksu said in his post that TKİ had caused the dismissal of 2,000 workers at the Işıklar mine by canceling the royalty contract with Yeni Anadolu.
“Turkish Coal Enterprises has dismissed 2,000 workers at the Soma Işıklar Mine, operated by Yeni Anadolu A.Ş., of which it is the majority shareholder, citing the cancellation of the royalty contract under its authority,” Aksu wrote.
The layoffs come amid growing labor unrest among miners in Turkey over unpaid wages, severance pay and working conditions.
In February workers at Yeni Anadolu Madencilik in Soma protested delayed payments and unpaid inflation adjustments.
In April more than 100 miners from Doruk Mining marched roughly 200 kilometers from Eskişehir to Ankara, where they staged a hunger strike outside the Energy Ministry. Police detained 110 of the miners during the protest, which ended later that month after a wage deal was reached.
The Soma district was the site of Turkey’s deadliest mining disaster on May 13, 2014, when 301 miners were killed and 162 others were injured in a fire inside the Eynez coal mine. The deaths were caused by carbon monoxide that spread through the mine after the fire broke out.
In March an appeals court ruled that cases against public officials over the disaster must be dropped due to the statute of limitations, effectively ending a significant part of the long-running legal process.
The ruling concerned officials accused of abuse of public duty over insufficient oversight of occupational health and safety measures, rather than direct responsibility for the deaths.
The Işıklar mine had previously been operated by the state. It was temporarily closed after safety inspections carried out following the Soma disaster found unsafe working conditions.
Production at the Işıklar mine resumed in September 2014. The mine produces lignite, a low-grade coal used in energy generation.