Trade Unionists Call on New Cabinet to Do Its Duties

Tayfun Görgün, general secretary of the Revolutionary Workers’ Trade Union Confederation (DİSK), Salim Uslu, president of the HAK-İŞ trade union confederation, and Emirali Şimşek, general secretary of the Public Employees’ Trade Union Confederation (KESK) told bianet a list of the “homework” they expect the new cabinet to do.

They demand solutions to both the “economic crisis” and the “democracy crisis”.

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan announced a reshuffle in his cabinet on Friday (1 May) evening. On Monday (4 May), the duties were distributed among the State Ministers.

The trade union leaders demand the following:

• A social programme in order to protect the unemployed and the poor from the effects of the economic crisis. They suggest, for instance, a lifting of taxes on education, health, accommodation and food for the poor.
• All three organisations have demanded a longer period of unemployment benefits and easier access to the benefits in the first place. Uslu also wants a special “social support fund” to be created, so that a kind of poverty wage could be paid out.
• DİSK has called for trade union laws, which have been kept waiting in parliament, to be rearranged according to international laws. Everyone should have the right to form a trade union.
• KESK has emphasised that the right to strike and to labour agreements for public employees has been proven by ECHR case law.
• HAK-İŞ has called for a development model that focuses on employment.
• DİSK and KESK representatives have called for urgent steps in the Kurdish issue and work on a democratic constitution. (TK/AG)