Our Board of Presidents, meeting at DISK Headquarters on March 30, 2022, discusses the following issues and shares its decisions with the public:
Living in this country is getting harder every day; life is expensive, but our labor is cheap, our life is cheap.
Millions are struggling to survive with the depreciation of money, record-breaking inflation and falling wages.
As a result of policies that made Turkey dependent on foreign agriculture, food inflation exceeded 70 percent even with the data of TURKSTAT.
Increases in the minimum wage, civil servant salaries and pensions at the beginning of the year disappeared at the beginning of the year. Millions of workers, retirees and farmers became poorer day by day, and they continue to be impoverished.
There is no solution for unemployment, there is at least one unemployed person in every household. Worse still, millions, especially young people and women, are losing hope of finding a job. One out of every five university graduates is unemployed; In other words, education is not enough to find a job either. The Unemployment Insurance Fund, on the other hand, is distributed not to the unemployed, but to employers seeking cost reduction.
All measures and supports regarding the pandemic have been removed, and the people are trying to take care of themselves and protect their own lives and health.
While we struggle to survive by borrowing, cutting from our bread, working so hard that there is no time to live, someone out there are increasing their profit and wealth.
The rulers of the country are protecting the rich, the banks and the capitalists, instead of protecting the people struggling for their livelihood in these harsh economic conditions. Wealth is transferred under the name of incentives to the capital, instead of work for the unemployed and food for the poor. Taxes of affiliated companies are reset. Privileged companies are revived through foreign exchange indexed auctions.
Funds are transferred from our taxes to banks and the wealthy under the name of the “Currency Protected Deposit” account. While the profits of the banks have increased by more than 300 percent in a year, the majority of the people see wages below the hunger line.
In this system, the poor get poorer and the rich get richer. In this order, those who earn money from money are revived.
Injustice grows with the choices of those who rule the country.
In this order, committing corruption and unlawfulness is allowed, but exercising your constitutional right and being a union member is the most common reason for dismissal.
In this order, while the law of workers’ rights is violated every day, the courts of this country are busy with unfair, unlawful, and endless “authority lawsuits” by employers against workers who want to use their right to collective bargaining by unionizing. Thus, while the right of workers to collective bargaining is being usurped, the rulers of the country are knowingly and willingly spectating all kinds of unlawfulness of employers.
In this system, the government is indifferent to the unregistered employment of employers, not paying wages for months, illegal overwork, but strikes are prohibited for the sake of their labor. The government proudly tells how it banned strikes to the representatives of foreign capital in search of cheap labor.
In this system, companies are saved from paying corporate tax with various exemptions, while the tax burden on wage earners increases due to unfair income tax brackets, and those who live by their labor are being robbed.
In this order, the media that says “everything is rosy” is pouring funds from state banks, but it is forbidden to talk about corruption, injustice, injustice done by companies to their workers, and the record-breaking profits of banks when the working class is in debt swamp!
In this order, it is free to spread all kinds of discrimination, racism, sexism, enmity, hatred and enmity towards science, but when you say rights, law, justice, democracy, peace, brotherhood and freedom, the police knock on your door in the morning!
In this order, our democratic rights are being completely abolished so that we do not oppose the growing injustice. The power partners are intolerant of even the slightest criticism, trying to silence everyone, from small children to the elderly, with threats, attacks or unlawful punishment methods.
Yes, the increase, cruelty, oppression, exploitation and injustice brought by the days! But this is not how it goes.
Spring has heralds: Workers are rising up in the workplaces and in the squares for a decent wage. Our people are raising their voices all over the country against the price hikes. We want to make a living, we want to live humanely, and our demands are common:
- Increases in electricity, water, natural gas and internet bills should be withdrawn, invoices should be exempted from all taxes and deductions.
- All wages, especially the minimum wage, which melted even in the face of official inflation at the beginning of the year, fell below the hunger limit and could not get a share of growth, should be redefined. The lowest pension should be reduced to at least the minimum wage level, and the pension rights of EYT members should be given.
- The tax burden on wages should be reduced, and a fair tax system should be established in which profits and interest incomes are taxed more, and those who earn more pay more.
- All forms of precarious employment under the name of tradesmen courier/self-employment/private employment agency/subcontractor should be ended, and everyone should be provided with secure employment.
- The most important way for the working class to compensate for the loss of income is the right to unionize and strike collective bargaining. All legal and de facto barriers to the exercise of trade union rights must be removed.
Now is the time to bring together those who say “this can not go like this” and their struggles for rights, law, justice, labor, peace and democracy on MAY DAY!
We producers, workers, workers, laborers, retirees, low-income people are the majority in this country. If we unite, the raises will be taken back. If we increase the solidarity, we get the right of our labor. Our struggle changes this order. Our struggle changes the country and the world. It is in our hands to establish the Turkey of labor and the world of labor.
Based on these determinations, our DİSK Presidents Board;
- May 1, 2022 Day of Unity, Struggle and Solidarity to be organized as a process in which struggles will be raised against the unjust order where life is expensive and labor is cheap,
- To organize the week between April 25 and May 1, 2022 as the “May 1 week”, in which continuous-widespread actions and activities will be carried out,
- Initiating efforts and initiatives to celebrate May 1, 2022 Unity, Struggle and Solidarity Day widely and massively all over the country, especially in Istanbul/Taksim Square,
- It has decided that this process should be carried out in a unity of reason and action, together with other labor-professional organizations and forces of democracy.