Healthcare workers protest their pay rise

* Photos: SES Union

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The İstanbul Medical Chamber and the Aksaray, Bakırköy and Anatolia Branches of the Health and Social Service Laborers' Union (SES) have protested for their additional payments in three different hospitals.

The health workers have demanded a rise in their basic wages and their additional payments, as promised by the Ministry of Health.

The SES Aksaray Branch protested in front of the Cerrahpaşa Faculty of Medicine in İstanbul today (January 15). Speaking on behalf of the union members, SES Aksaray Branch Co-Chair Aydın Erol criticized the civil servants' 3+3 percent pay rise to take effect in 2021.

Erol noted that "like all workers, the wages of healthcare workers were determined by collective labor agreements signed by pro-government unions and based on the inflation rate difference calculated by the Turkish Statistical Institute (TurkStat) using unreal data."

Raising concerns that the basic wage of healthcare workers was currently a little over the starvation line, he criticized their wage rise as follows:

"Over the past year, natural gas prices have increased by 32 percent, electricity prices have risen by 31 percent, the prices of legumes have by 60 percent, the price of cheese by 27 percent, that of eggs has risen by 80 percent and the price of sunflower seed oil has increased by 50 percent.

"As for the rise in the wages of civil servants, it is only 13.11 percent, taken together with the recently announced inflation rate difference."

'We are surrounded by bundle of problems'

Further in his speech, Aydın Erol also underlined that "the pandemic conditions were used as an excuse to save on additional payments and to increase contract-precarious employment" of health workers, adding that "by increasing the wages by 3+3 percent, the authorities were expecting them to make ends meet with a poverty increase."

"Apart from these economic hardships, we are trying to fulfil our duty away from our loved ones, even our children, while working in really difficult conditions by risking our lives. Though we work in our shifts 24 hours a day, we do not have a kindergarten that we can leave our children for 24 hours. As for the available kindergartens, we can get service for really high fees."

The Bakırköy Branch of the SES Union protested in front of the Sadi Konuk Training and Research Hospital.

Bakırköy Branch's Co-Chair Hatip Şengül also raised concerns over the increases in prices and the deepening economic crisis. Emphasizing that the basic wage must be increased, Şengül said:

"We have been surrounded by an unending bundle of problems, ranging from reactionism, polarization, trustee policies and State and Emergency practices to the pandemic, high costs of living, difficulty in making ends meet and unemployment among numerous others."

She further noted that "the government was helping this bundle to grow instead of solving the problems faced by people and laborers."

The İstanbul Medical Chamber and Anatolia SES Branch were in front of the Lütfi Kırdar Training and Research Hospital.

Reading out the statement for the press, SES Training and Organization Secretary Edibe Aşık asked, "Where are the additional payments for November and December 2020? What is given is not an additional payment, we rise up against the chicken feed given to us."

Health workers also listed their demands in this context. Indicating that "not the workers, but the bosses should pay the income tax," the health and social service workers demanded that either their collective labor agreements be renewed or their wages be increased by 2,000 Turkish Lira. (RT/SD)