Life to halt one day next week as civil servants stop working

Turkish Public Workers’ Labor Union (Kamu-Sen) President Bircan Akyıldız announced that civil servants will not work on Nov. 25 “to cause life to stop for one day,” so that the government understands how serious the civil servants’ demands, including higher wage increases and improved social welfare conditions, truly are.

Akyıldız called a press conference yesterday in Ankara with Kamu-Sen managers and representatives of Kamu-Sen member unions to provide details about the labor action.

Akyıldız said, “The failures of inept governments and the fecklessness of evil-minded managers have burdened civil servants for years.”

Civil servants come under criticism both in times of crisis and during economic prosperity, he claimed, and accused the government of breaking its promises made during earlier collective bargaining and dodging its obligation to fulfill the decisions made in the mutual talks. “At the current point, civil servants have lost confidence in the government entirely,” he asserted.

Despite earlier attempts to find common ground, the government has left no alternative for civil servants but to struggle for their rights in the streets, Akyıldız argued. “The knife has reached the bone [a Turkish idiom meaning the last straw]. The words have come to an end, our leniency has been ignored with no proper response and the dialog between the government and civil servants has sustained a harsh blow. Now this action is our last resort. We are organizing on Nov. 25 to express our rights, to remind the government of the fact that Turkey is a democracy and the basis of democracies lies in the protection of the rights of all segments of society and in ensuring a fair allocation of the state’s resources among the people,” he said.

He said the government will need to assume responsibility for the hitches and problems that may arise due to the lack of civil servants’ services on the action day.

Akyıldız threatened that “the trains will halt with all other public transportation and commuting vehicles, teachers will not go to schools, planes will not take off, bridge tolls will not open and no tax will be collected” on the action day.

Legally, civil servants do not have the right to strike for any reason, and such an action is grounds for firing. In light of this fact, the civil servants are using tactics such as taking a day of casual leave for a variety of reasons including illness or a relative’s death.