A group of 24 miners in northwestern Turkey remained underground Monday on the 26th day of a protest over unpaid wages, overtime and severance payments, according to Turkish media reports.
The miners are some 1,200 meters underground at a coal mine operated by Özşen Madencilik in Uzunköprü, a district of Edirne province.
They began a hunger strike after weeks of protest over money they say the company owes them.
The workers say their wages have been paid irregularly for months and that overtime payments, severance and private pension deductions have not been transferred.
Their families and representatives from the Independent Miners Union (Bağımsız Maden İş) are keeping watch outside the mine.
The miners say they are not seeking a raise but payment of wages and other legal entitlements for work they have already performed.
The Independent Miners Union said the hunger strike entered its third day Monday and that communication with the miners had been disrupted, increasing concern among families about conditions underground.
The union also said on Sunday that three shots were fired from inside the mine site toward workers and their families. No one was injured.
YA BİZ, YA ONLAR!
Bugün madencilere, ailelerine ve sendika yöneticilerimize yönelik silahlı saldırının ardından bir kez daha saldırıya uğradık.
Kimliği belirsiz kişiler, madenci ailelerinin, çocuklarının ve direnişteki işçilerin üzerine saldırdı. Yerin 1200 metre altında açlık… pic.twitter.com/1MaKAYhtqL
— Bağımsız Maden İş (@bagimsizmadenis) June 14, 2026
“Workers and families have occupied the mine. There is no turning back,” the union said in a statement. “If it means death, then death.”
Başaran Aksu, an organizing specialist with the union, said the workers were being intimidated into abandoning their demands.
“They want to silence us through fear,” Aksu said. “But if we were afraid of death, we would not go underground.”
Families of the miners said they were worried about possible gas and oxygen problems underground and accused the company of trying to cut off contact with the workers.
Beyza Benzer, whose husband, Mustafa Benzer, is among the miners underground, said he had not received his salary for months and that overtime payments and private pension deductions had not been paid.
“If my husband had received what he is owed, he would not be underground today. Maybe we would have been on vacation,” she said. “There is nothing left but disappointment.”
The protest comes amid growing labor unrest among miners in Turkey over unpaid wages, severance payments and job security.
Last week 1,361 miners at the Işıklar coal mine in Soma, a district in the western province of Manisa, were told their contracts would be terminated on July 9 after the state-owned mine was transferred to a private company.
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 scene 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.