Strike banner hung at Purmo!

12punto.com.tr

It has been announced that the Metal-İş Union, affiliated with DİSK, has decided to go on strike at Purmo Group Turkey A.Ş, which operates in İzmir, due to the failure to reach an agreement in collective bargaining negotiations.

In a statement made by the Birleşik Metal-İş Union, it was stated that the union's efforts to conclude the collective bargaining agreement at the table during the negotiation process, which began on January 9, were unsuccessful; following evaluations with members, it was concluded that the employer's offer was far from meeting the demands of Purmo workers, and the decision to strike was taken.

The statement included the following expressions:

“The Purmo Group workplace in Kemalpaşa, İzmir, is an international company with Finnish capital that has been organized by our union since 2007, has more than 3 thousand employees in 21 countries worldwide, and exports to many countries.

Our union has achieved significant gains that will, to some extent, compensate for the losses experienced by metal workers through successful collective bargaining agreements signed across the country, especially the MESS Group Collective Bargaining Agreement signed at the beginning of this year. We prepared a collective bargaining draft that would not crush Purmo workers under inflation. In our proposal, we suggested a 120 percent raise for the workers' current wages for the first six months.

Purmo employers, on the other hand, gave our union a wage offer that is not even enough to meet the most basic needs of the workers and remains below even the deceptive inflation figures.

The economic picture our country is in makes life increasingly difficult for workers every day. As a result of the economic policies that the government calls austerity and that employers embrace with both hands, the problems we face are multiplying day by day.

It does not seem possible for us to compensate for our losses with the raise rates offered by the Purmo employer. At this point, employers leave us no choice but to use our strike weapon. In a period where workers are constantly becoming impoverished and suffering income loss, the employer should provide a wage offer that Purmo workers can accept instead of very low-rate wage raise offers.

As the Birleşik Metal-İş Union, we carried out our Gates strike in the Aegean Free Zone exactly two months ago, which lasted 12 days and was crowned with a significant victory. Today, in Kemalpaşa, we are enthusiastically hanging our strike banner against the collective bargaining offer of the Purmo employer that does not meet the expectations and demands of our members.

Our strike, which we started today, will continue until our demands are met. We call on all our class friends to show solidarity with the rightful struggle of Purmo workers and with our strike.”