Strike, Central government, Türkiye

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

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.

On 27 August the KESK public services confederation organised a national strike in protest at the collective agreement signed by the government and the Memur Sen trade union. KESK has a range of key demands which the agreement fails to address and is angry that it was shut out of the negotiations. The confederation argues that the pay rises foreseen in the agreement are inadequate to ensure protection against inflation and it doesn’t include any measures to deal with employment security, workplace democracy or the right to proper collective bargaining. EPSU sent a solidarity message.

The KESK public sector confederation has rejected the offer made by the government for public sector wide pay increases in 2022 and 2023. The Ministry of Labour offered increases of 5% and 6% in 2022 and two increases of 6% in 2023 with further adjustments for inflation. However, KESK has already highlighted the extent to which public sector pay has fallen behind inflation (currently over 17%) and it also questions whether the official inflation figure really reflects living costs for most workers. However, the confederation is also disappointed that the public sector pay talks fail to address

Civil servants this year will see pay rise by 8% for the first six months with a further 4% for the second six months. Workers on less than TL 3500 (EUR 555) a month will get an additional TL 150 (EUR 25). Not all public sector trade unions are happy with the outcome as inflation is currently running at 16.7%. Pay in 2020 is set to increase in two instalments of 3%, although this could be increased if inflation is higher.

The government has passed a decree that effectively ends outsourcing in central and local government. Outsourced workers in central government will be directly employed by the central government institutions while those in local authorities will be transferred to local authority-owned companies, rather than directly to the local authorities. The changes have been welcomed by trade unions although some have expressed concern about the difference in rights and pay and conditions for those in local authority companies and about the fact that the changes were implemented by decree with no