‘We cannot make ends meet’: Workers take to the streets in İzmir

* Photo: DİSK Twitter account

Click to read the article in Turkish

Upon the call of the Confederation of Progressive Trade Unions of Turkey (DİSK), thousands of workers took to the streets in İzmir province yesterday (November 18) to say, "We cannot make ends meet."

The workers gathered in the Konak Cumhuriyet Square and chanted the slogans, "Job, bread, freedom", "Budget for the laborer, not for the palace", "The unity of workers will beat the capital", "Government; down with your price increase", "Government resign", "We want a humane wage."

The protest of the workers came amid the ongoing 2022 budget talks at the Parliamentary Planning and Budgetary Commission and ahead of the minimum wage negotiations for the year 2022.

'Where does the TurkStat do shopping?'

The statement for the press was read out by DİSK Aegean Regional Representative Memiş Sarı on behalf of the workers. Sarı said:

"We don't know what price increases will be introduced tomorrow; we don't know how we will make ends meet with our wages getting more and more meager or how we will come the coming winter.

"Every morning, we wake up to a day with deeper poverty and increasing unemployment. With our money becoming worthless everyday, our labor is also becoming worthless."

DİSK's Memiş Sarı also criticized the wide gap between the official inflation rates announced by the Turkish Statistical Institute (TurkStat) and the inflation experienced by people in their daily lives: "All laborers are curious about which market the TurkStat does shopping in. There is no such a market, such a bazaar or such a shopping center in the county."

Call for a general strike for the minimum wage

Expressing workers' demand for justice in income and taxation, Sarı briefly said: "We as the ones who say, 'We cannot find a job', 'We cannot find housing' and 'We cannot make ends meet' should stand shoulder to shoulder and put an end to this. We need to put an end to this unfair order where workers pay taxes at a higher rate than their bosses.

"With the budgets they draw up, they take from the poor and give to the rich. They become so reckless that they even transfer the money in the Unemployment Insurance Fund to employers."

Recalling that the 2022 budget is still being debated at the Parliament and the minimum wage will be determined in December, Sarı made a call to all unions: "Don't stay silent in the face of workers' rightful demands. We want a one-day strike for the minimum wage." (KÖ/SD)