The Collaboration Between the Amazon’s Work Regime and the Yellow Union Has Murdered Mehmet Şahin!
Our union, DGD-SEN, is sharing with the public the findings of the investigation and the interviews conducted inside the warehouse, as well as with his colleagues and family, regarding our member Mehmet Şahin, who committed suicide while working at an Amazon warehouse.
Our member, Amazon warehouse worker Mehmet Şahin, ended his life on Saturday, May 9. The process began when he resigned from the yellow union, Dok Gemi İş and switched to paying statutory solidarity fees to retain his contract rights, after which he was reassigned to a different department. This was followed by intense speed pressure, degrading treatment, and a complete lack of any authority to address his grievances. Despite explicitly informing the management both in writing and verbally that he could not work in a heavy-duty department due to Multiple Sclerosis (MS), he was nevertheless forced to continue working there. In the department where he last worked before his suicide, he verbally informed his team leader that he was on the verge of suicide because his problems were not being resolved and no contact person could be reached to take responsibility. Upon hearing this, the team leader referred Mehmet to Amazon’s support line. Following management’s direction, he was first referred to a psychologist and then to a psychiatrist. However, no medication treatment was initiated during this period, and he was unable to attend his second session because he had already ended his life. Through this entire process, the mobbing and pressure inside the warehouse did not subside; Mehmet Şahin’s demands were not met, and his problems were left unresolved.
In interviews we conducted with Mehmet Şahin’s family and with other workers – also DGD-SEN members – who were subjected to the same mobbing, we were informed that the mobbing inside the warehouse was intensified even further after his resignation from the Dok Gemi İş union. We were also informed that Abdullah Türe, the chief representative of Dok Gemi İş at Amazon, was fully involved in and aware of these practices. It is widely known that Abdullah Türe walked through the warehouse with lists of names, stating, “I will have these people subjected to mobbing” and directly reported workers who resigned from the yellow union to the Amazon management. The mobbing and pressure Mehmet Şahin experienced at the Amazon warehouse were also reflected in the family’s daily conversations and routines over the last two months. Our investigation proves that, contrary to the claims of Amazon management and Dok Gemi İş, this tragedy goes far beyond social, political, or family issues. The process that led step by step to his death was orchestrated by Amazon’s work regime and by Dok Gemi İş deliberately enabling mobbing and pressure against our members who resigned from the yellow union.
As soon as news of Mehmet Şahin’s death reached the warehouse, management said, “He had family issues, life goes on for the living, we must keep working, he did not provide us with his MS medical report,” thereby preventing the warehouse workers from holding a five-minute commemoration or mourning for their deceased colleague. Through this repressive approach, management sought to prevent any discussion of the incident inside the warehouse. Wearing black t-shirts or carrying Mehmet’s photograph on one’s collar was also prohibited. Despite this, warehouse workers contacted our union and continued to commemorate Mehmet and share information on collective platforms. After hearing that our union and the workers’ committee had met with the family on May 14–15, Amazon’s Human Resources department requested to visit the family and stated that they were ready to do whatever was necessary. Following this visit, Abdullah Türe, chief representative of the yellow union Dok Gemi İş, approached our members and threatened them, saying, “I know who is behind these news reports; Neslihan is responsible for all of this.” By targeting our president, Neslihan Acar, and attempting to reduce his own responsibility in this murder to a matter of union rivalry, Türe is attempting to escape the backlash of the warehouse workers, legal proceedings, and potential on-the-ground reactions.
We would like to briefly share the history of our organizing at Amazon warehouse to make clear that this is not a matter of inter-union rivalry. On the contrary, we insist on class-oriented unionism in the interest of warehouse workers. Our organizing began with the Ceva Amazon project, and has continued alongside hundreds of our fellow workers fighting to unionize. This process has included the dismissal of many workers due to union activity, successful compensation lawsuits, and ongoing protests at warehouse gates. Four years ago, when Amazon began operating in Turkey under its own name, this struggle continued at the Tuzla warehouse. In an effort to break this organizing and prevent a militant union like DGD-SEN from existing inside the warehouse, Amazon management facilitated the entry of Dok Gemi İş i upon the recommendation of an individual who serves both as a MESS (Turkish Employers’ Association of Metal Industries) lawyer and as Amazon’s legal counsel. Our organizing efforts inside the warehouse continue uninterrupted. We intervene directly in all processes concerning Amazon warehouse workers— through on-site actions at the warehouse gates, through our institutional accounts, by filing ministry complaints, and through our workers’ committee. We secure demands not covered by collective agreements through active on-the-ground struggle. Our union is the direct point of contact for all workers’ problems, whether they are members or not. It must be clearly understood: Mehmet Şahin, by leaving Dok Gemi İş union, took a clear stand against the Amazon-yellow union collaboration, aligning himself with his own class interests and the unity within the committee councils. He was our member.
The process that drove Mehmet Şahin to his death cannot be separated from Amazon’s global system of exploitation, built on relentless performance pressure, digital surveillance, and the expendability of workers’ bodies. Marketed under the guise of “high speed”, this regime treats workers as disposable and disregards human dignity, worker health, and fundamental rights. To maintain its union-busting tactics, precarious work practices, and system of modern slavery all over the world, Amazon operates as a global crime machine, thereby driving workers to physical and psychological exhaustion, and even to the brink of suicide. Our member Mehmet Şahin became a direct victim of this brutal, border-transcending exploitation model and the corporate stranglehold established by the warehouse management and its local collaborators like the yellow union. The entity we face is not just a local management; it is a global wheel that turns at the expense of workers’ lives!
We take full responsibility in demanding accountability for Mehmet, and for ending mobbing and pressure inside Amazon warehouse. We are initiating both legal action and direct on-the-ground struggle.
Based on all testimonies and the information provided to our union, we declare with absolute clarity: This is a workplace murder. Mehmet Şahin was killed by the collaboration between Amazon and the yellow union.
They will be held accountable!
