Employees of the north’s Koop Bank and its subsidiaries continued their strike into a second week on Monday, demanding that the company formally distance itself from a reported eight-item list of austerity measures which is to be imposed on workers.

Those include that those receiving a pension stop work, the 13th salary be abolished, the cost-of-living allowance (CoLA) not be paid, and that Eid bonuses be cut in half.

Koop Bank is one of the largest employers in the north, and as well as a bank, operates Seker Insurance, dairy company Koop Sut, and the Binboga animal feed factory, among other companies.

Having previously gathered outside and then inside the Koop Bank headquarters, as well as outside ‘prime minister’ Unal Ustel’s and ‘deputy prime minister’ Fikri Ataoglu’s offices last week, workers on Monday protested outside the north’s cooperative companies’ registrar office.

There, trade union Koop-Sen leader Mehmetali Guroz said authorities are “passing the blame to one another instead of taking responsibility”, while also claiming that plans are afoot for 44 workers to be laid off.

“If we cannot prevent the laying off of 44 of our coworkers, they will hunt us down one by one tomorrow,” he said, before adding that striking workers would once again return to Ataoglu’s office on Tuesday.

He said workers had chosen the registrar’s office as the location for Monday’s protest with the intention of convincing those inside not to sign off on the reported 44 layoffs.

“Do not sign the paperwork. Do not be complicit in this. History will not forget you,” he said.