Türkiye, Latvia

The LVSADA health workers’ union reached an agreement with the Ministry of Health on 18 October that will deliver pay increases for doctors (10.6%), nurses (6.5%) and assistant nurses (6.9%) in 2024. This means that medical personnel will have seen pay rises of around 23-24% for the three-year period 2022-24. There will also be an additional €40 per month (gross, average) for non-medical personnel in 2024. The agreement was negotiated with the new health minister and resolves a long-standing dispute over pay.

EPSU sent a letter to the Ministry of Health in support of demands by the LVSADA trade union that promised pay increases for health workers should be honoured. The union says that in April this year the Ministry made a commitment to award doctors a 4.5% pay increase this year along with pay rises for other medical staff. The union called for the increases to be applied from 1 July and then conceded 1 September as a fall-back date. However, the Ministry is now claiming that funding is not available for pay increases as the priority is to focus on increasing services. LVSADA is clear that unless

The KESK public services confederation argues that this month’s negotiations on public sector pay and conditions have failed to deliver any significant improvements. On the central issue of pay there is no agreement at all and the issue is now in arbitration. Meanwhile, the confederation says that many union demands have not been addressed with no measures proposed on tackling precarious employment, on addressing harassment and discrimination, no measures on fairer tax and nothing to improve pensions. Meanwhile, the Genel-İş local government union has signed a new collective agreement with the

Negotiations covering over six million public sector employees and pensioners began on 1 August with trade unions from the KESK confederation the main, independent trade unions involved in the process. KESK has set out its key demands which include above all a change to the system to ensure that it guarantees a proper process of collective bargaining, with trade unions entitled to resort to strike action, if necessary. Other key demands include an end to precarious employment and sub-contracting, raising the minimum wage of public sector workers above the poverty line, increasing the minimum

After lengthy negotiations the LVSADA health workers’ union has secured an increase to the pay rises offered by the ministry of health. The agreement stipulates that the average monthly salary for medical practitioners will be increased by €120 from 1 April which equates to 6.1%, that is 2.4% higher than the initial offer. Nurses, midwives, physician assistants will see a 10.1% increase (an improvement of 3.9% on the initial offer) and junior staff, including nursing assistants, will benefit from a 16.1% pay rise (an improvement of 6.3%).

Picketing and strike action by the Dev Sağlık-İş trade union, with support from EPSU and PSI, helped address bullying, harassment and anti-trade union behaviour by management at the Koç University Hospital in Istanbul. Although the dismissed union members were not reinstated, the employer paid increased compensation in recognition of the discriminatory action against union officials. The union also secured the dismissal of the manager responsible for the bullying, the end to harassment and withdrawal of false accusations against union members. Both PSI and EPSU sent protest letters.