Not even canteens are spared in the onslaught against academia: NO even if I am sacked

Hakan Dirik

Two canteen workers at İzmir Katip Çelebi University have been sacked for a social media post of a photograph taken in front of a ‘No’ sticker that students had stuck in a lift. One of the canteen workers, Zeynep Gürler, spoke to Cumhuriyet and said, ‘What they did was an insult. But, even if I end up unemployed, ‘No’ is the place to be.’

On 28 February, Zeynep Gürler and her colleague, who are employed as canteen staff at Katip Çelebi University’s Dentistry Faculty in Çiğli, saw a sticker reading ‘Saying “No” to the university chancellorship. Youth is here’ that students had stuck in a lift. Gürler posted a photograph she took next to the sticker while making the victory sign on her Facebook account. The canteen staff were reported by the university rectorate and were sacked by their employer, the sub-contractor company Erzade İnşaat. In the record made by the subcontractor company, it was stated, ‘Your contract of employment will be terminated by us because you have made posts intended to disparage hospital management in your posts on social media and the poster you made.’ Gürler took receipt of the record, making the entry, ‘I do not accept the accusations on which it is based.’ Gürler says she is aware of the atmosphere of intimidation engulfing the country, but, in spite of everything, did not expect to lose her job on account of such an accusation coming from a body like a university. Gürler, saying that she will stand up for her rights by suing university management and the subcontractor company, said, ‘They are asking the people something in holding a referendum. They are offering us the right to vote. What objection can there be to me posting the opinion that I’m inclined towards? What sort of accusation in particular can come from the university about this? After the treatment we have suffered, I think what I did is even more correct.’