'Union workers in municipalities dismissed despite layoff ban'

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Although layoffs are banned due to the Covid-19 pandemic, municipal workers who are a member of the Confederation of Progressive Trade Unions of Turkey (DİSK) Genel-İş have been dismissed from their jobs, the union said.

Workers at the metropolitan municipalities of Mardin, Diyarbakır, and İzmir were dismissed on the ground of "security" reasons, it said in a written statement.

Noting that thousands of its members were dismissed by statutory decrees during the state of emergency following the 2016 coup attempt, the union said, "After Diyarbakır and Mardin, 15 of our members in the İzmir Metropolitan Municipality were [dismissed] by the government with unlawful and false allegations. Municipal workers don't want to lose their jobs because of security reasons or an unfair reason."

"Without a judicial decision, you can't make people lose their jobs arbitrarily and based on intelligence information, the accuracy of which is questionable. In the municipalities of our Eastern and Southeastern Anatolia regions, wch are governed by appointed officials, workers work every day with the threat and worry of being dismissed," it noted. (AÖ/VK)