Turkey-End of a meat empire.

TURKEY -MEAT EMPIRE COMES TO AN END.

The last factory of Köy-Tür, once Turkey’s biggest poultry processors, has been shut down.

One thousand jobs have been lost, at the facility in the Torbali district of Izmir, the country’s third-biggest city.

Founded in the 1970s, Köy-Tür at its peak was active in 12 different provinces, but the company’s last processing facility, Köy-Tür Ege Entegre Tavukçuluk, had been unable to produce for the past seven months. First hit by the bird flu epidemic, then by the global crisis, the facility was eventually shut down.

Many of the workers blamed the management, saying they had not received salaries for the past three months and could not receive their compensation money. Some claimed that Dabak, the company that took over Köy-Tür, had ’purposely depleted’ Köy-Tür’s finances.

Mevlüt Sigin, a Köy-Tür worker for the past three and a half years, said the company distributed "50 to 100 Turkish Liras as hush money."

"They told us we would get our receivables but then they went," Sigin said. "The company owes me 2,500 liras."

Recep Tangül, a Köy-Tür worker for the past 16 years, said he got personal credit from a bank that was contingent on his job. "I got neither my reparation money nor my salary. I have been suffering for four months," he said. "My social security has also been cancelled. If we fall sick, there is nowhere to go."