March 2004, the employees in question applied to the Izmir Labour Court on grounds of being dismissed wrongfully and requested to be reinstated to the company. Between July and December 2004, a number of Izmir Labour Courts (No. 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5) ruled in favour of the workers, stating they were dismissed for trade union activities and ordering the company to either reinstate the dismissed workers or pay them union compensation equalling one year’s salary. Between December 2004 and June 2005, the Court of Cassation 9th CC. upheld those judgments. The company failed to reinstate any of the workers, instead paying them the compensation ordered by the courts. By 2005, the applicant trade union had no members in the company. The ECtHR examined the union’s application and issued its judgment based on the following three determinations: ■ First, even though the domestic courts ordered the payment of compensation for wrongful dismissals, these decisions lost their deterrent effect. This is because compensation was paid as a result of proceedings that lasted between one and one and a half year, exceeding the legal three-month time limit. In this case, a fair balance had not been struck between the conflicting interests of the applicant trade union and the company. As a result, the Court found that Article 11 of the European Convention of Human rights had been violated. EXAMPLES OF COLLECTIVE LABOUR RIGHTS VIOLATIONS IN EUROPEAN INVESTMENT ENTERPRISES Petrochemicals Industry Flormar ■ Second, the compensation lost their deterrent effect towards the company because the domestic courts awarded the minimum amounts authorized by the law. They did not take into account the fact that the workers’ wages were low and/or that the employer’s economic power was high. Nor did the courts provide any explanations on why only the minimum amounts were awarded. ■ Third, the applicant trade union’s core union activities were limited when the company opted to pay the compensation ordered by the domestic courts due to wrongful dismissal. As such, the company excluded the applicant trade union from its premises, resulting in the loss of all the members of the trade union in question. In summary, the Court found that the relevant law had not sufficiently imposed a deterrent penalty on the employer. This had annihilated the applicant trade union’s freedom to try to persuade employees to join. Consequently, neither the legislature nor the courts involved in the case had fulfilled their positive obligation to guarantee the applicant trade union’s effective enjoyment of its right to attempt to convince the employer to listen to its comments on behalf of its members and, in principle, of its right to collective bargaining. 42 C O L L E C T I V E R I G H T S O F W O R K E R S U N D E R T U R K E Y ’ S C O N T I N U O U S S TAT E O F E M E R G E N C Y T R A D E U N I O N R I G H T S I N E U R O P E A N A N D E U R O P E A N - A F F I L I AT E D E N T E R P R I S E S Background Information Yves Rocher (Groupe Rocher) is a French company that produces cosmetics and beauty products for women and has numerous brands under its umbrella. Yves Rocher is a company that pledged to respect the principles of UN Global Compact between 2007 and 2011, but because it failed to report its progress, it was removed from the company list in 2011.34 The company’s “Code of Business Conduct” published in 2017, states that the company respects its employees’ rights, and aims to create a working environment that is free from violence, pressure and intimidation/threat. It also stresses that the company respects union rights within the legal framework.35 34 https://www.unglobalcompact.org/what-is-gc/participants/10267 35 https://www.groupe-rocher-fournisseurs.com/sites/default/files/gr-code_of_business_conduct_gr_september_2017en.pdf (Accessed on 26.08.2019). E X A M P L E S O F C O L L E C T I V E L A B O U R R I G H T S V I O L AT I O N S I N E U R O P E A N I N V E S T M E N T E N T E R P R I S E S 43