On June 17, 2023, our second training meeting was held in Istanbul in line with our 2023 training program funded by the European Union.
Our General President Kazım Doğan, our General Secretary Celal Aslan, our General Executive Board members Savaş Testici, Birol Tan and our Merter Branch President Asalettin Arslanoğlu attended the training meeting which was organized for our representatives in Edirne, Istanbul, Tekirdağ and Şanlıurfa.
DISK President Dr. Arzu Çerkezoğlu sent a message wishing success to all our representatives who attended the meeting.
Our General President Doğan made the opening speech of the meeting. In his speech, Doğan reminded that workers have been subjected to serious injustice, especially in terms of severance pay and tax deductions. Doğan pointed out that union executives receive much more severance pay than workers under the service allowance, whereas workers receive less severance pay due to the ceiling amount imposed on workers. For this reason, he said, the executives of unions other than DİSK do not even pay attention to these issues.
Stating that the tax brackets and severance pay ceilings are low, Doğan emphasized that workers’ incomes are being reduced and that workers should warn political parties about this issue.
In the first part of the training meeting, which was organized in three parts, social security law expert Fevzi Şen and labor law and audit expert Mustafa Doğan made presentations on the place of wages in our legislation, the elements of the payroll and severance pay. In this two-hour part, the problems encountered by our members were discussed with their evaluations on examples from their workplaces.
In the second part of the meeting, Dr. Mustafa Sülkü, a member of the Occupational Health and Workplace Medicine Commission of the Istanbul Medical Chamber, made a presentation on many important issues, starting from the definition of occupational diseases, occupational diseases frequently encountered in the textile sector, and what workers who get sick should do.
In the last session of the second part, Ayşe Emel Akalın, Gender and Social Dialogue Manager at the International Labour Organization (ILO), gave information on the content and functioning of ILO Convention No. 190 on the Prevention of Violence and Harassment at Workplace and especially on the “workplace policy document”.
This year’s part of the representative training program, which was carried out by our union, DİSK and 3F within the scope of the project supported by the European Union, has been completed.
