Call for 'welfare share' for civil servants

Inflation figures were announced as 37.86 percent annually and 3 percent monthly according to TUIK, and 73.88 percent annually and 4.46 percent monthly according to ENAG.

Hürriyetçi Eğitim Sen Chairman Levent Kuruoğlu evaluated the announced figures.

Levent Kuruoğlu included the following statements in his announcement:

"While ENAG announced April inflation as 4.46 percent monthly and 73.88 percent annually, TUIK announced April inflation as 3 percent and annual inflation as 37.86 percent.

There is no longer any need to criticize based on TUIK inflation! Because we are personally experiencing how the markets have turned into a place of fire.

This is a fact; if accurate inflation figures had been declared over the years, the purchasing power of civil servants and retirees would not have fallen this much today. The government has loaded the entire burden of its economic failure onto all low and fixed-income earners, such as civil servants, retirees, and workers.

Manipulating inflation figures is equivalent to stealing from the citizen's pocket. It is clear what kind of standard of living is deemed appropriate for our retirees who cannot even cover their house rent with one month's income. All have been condemned to live below the poverty line; is there anyone who has heard the government promise hope for civil servants?

Labor unions have requested in the 2025-2026 Collective Bargaining Agreement that the lowest daily gross wage be increased to 1,800 TL (a 40% increase from the current 1,300 TL), followed by a 50% raise for the first 6 months of 2025, a 25% raise for the subsequent 6-month periods, and a 10% welfare share. Social rights and similar demands are separate.

Here, apart from the percentage raise demand, the most remarkable demand is the WELFARE SHARE! As Hür-Sen, we know that the welfare share is the only solution to compensate for the purchasing power we have lost, and we have been persistently bringing it to the agenda for months.

Let's see what the authorized unions will demand for civil servants and retirees in the Collective Bargaining Agreement to be held in August 2025? More importantly, what actions and activities will they carry out to achieve these demands? Is there anyone who has hope in unions whose primary is 'yellow' and whose backup is 'yellow'? There is no faith left in these well-known unions, which have millions or five hundred thousand members, whom even their own members do not believe in but still remain members of.

As long as union membership is done not with the demand for 'living humanely' but with the mentality of 'let my supervisor be happy, I will not take any risks'; isn't this clearly asking for yellow unionism to be practiced? Our primary responsibility is to our family and our country. We have no debt or obligation to anyone.

As Hür-Sen, we know that the only way out of this whirlpool is for yellow unionism to be shelved. There is no goal we can achieve with any structure that has surrendered its will to others. Hür-Sen is determined to practice unionism.

Let's build our future together! Let's bury yellow unionism with joint effort."

News Source: 12punto