Strike at Kadıköy Municipality: CHP fails to implement in its municipalities the promises it makes in public squares

Hazal GÜVEN

The collective bargaining process, led by DİSK, has been ongoing for 6 months. Kadıköy Municipality workers have not been able to reach the point they desire in the long-running negotiations.

The collective bargaining table is set up constantly, but a large portion of the demands continue to be debated at the table.

The legal period set to reach a consensus will expire at midnight, and municipal employees are demanding that their wages be raised to the promised figures and that overtime pay be provided. If this does not happen, the workers will hang the strike notice on the municipality's door.

"WE ARE EXPERIENCING A DEADLOCK ON MONETARY ISSUES"

Semra Çelebi, an executive at the Genel-İş Anatolian Side Branch No. 1, spoke to 12punto about the ongoing process. Çelebi stated the following:

We prepared our collective bargaining draft, an 80-article draft, but we have not been able to make any progress at the table so far. A quarter of the contract remains on the table; after midnight tonight, we are going on strike, which is our legal right, and we want this strike to make an impact because the articles still under discussion are very important to us...

At the top of these are the weekend holidays for outdoor cleaning workers. There is the issue of improving the working conditions of our security guard colleagues, who work in shifts and have been suffering from major rights violations for two years.

There are pay scales; these are the sections where our worker colleagues are divided according to their professions and receive wages accordingly, but the employer did not come to the table on this issue, municipal officials did not come to the table, and our demands were not accepted.

We are experiencing a deadlock on monetary issues such as overtime and night shift pay. Our most important problem is wages!

"THEY HAD SAID THE MINIMUM WAGE WOULD BE 40 THOUSAND LIRA IN THEIR OWN MUNICIPALITIES; WE ARE RECEIVING SALARIES IN THE 20-25 THOUSAND BAND"

We are in a state of tremendous impoverishment; we are in a period where the AKP and MHP have dragged the broad masses into poverty, but we work in CHP municipalities and the CHP has a monetary policy. They talk about a 30 thousand lira minimum wage in public squares and promise to give their own municipal employees 40 thousand lira as a minimum wage, but we are still receiving salaries in the 20-25 thousand band at Kadıköy Municipality.

We want a serious adjustment to be made to these, but the offers that come to us are in a way that we cannot accept...

In many municipalities, additional protocols and adjustments were made after the local elections, but this adjustment was not made in Kadıköy Municipality either; we are among the municipalities that receive the lowest wages...

News Source : 12punto