While our working life is struggling with many problems, a new one has been added to these problems with the pandemic process. With the unpaid leave that started in April last year, nearly 2,5 million workers were faced with the livelihood conditions growing like mountains with a wage of 39 lira per day, that is, 1,170 lira per month.
The practice not only led to financial difficulties, but also to the violation of workers' rights. In many workplaces, workers who are union members have been punished by taking unpaid leave because dismissals are prohibited.
With the onset of the Covid-19 outbreak in our country last year, measures were taken in many areas. The most striking of these measure packages was the applications for the working life. While the government prohibits firing from work in order not to stop production, it also introduced short-time work allowance and unpaid leave practices to reduce the burden on the employer. The practice, whose initiative was left to the employer, was reacted greatly by the labor front and calls were made to abandon this practice, which forced the worker to live on 39 lira per day. However, the ruling wing has not taken a step yet despite these calls.
CLOSE TO 2.5 MILLION WORKERS HAD TO GO WITH 39 LIRA PER DAY
The scorecard of the unpaid leave application, which was on the agenda of working life in April last year, proved the reaction of the labor front to be justified. According to Turkey Employment Agency (İŞKUR) data, between April 2020 and December 2020, 2 million 216 thousand 622 workers were dismissed within the scope of the unpaid leave application and were obliged to provide for themselves and their families with wages that are more than the minimum wage, such as 39 lira per day, ie 1.170 lira per month.
FREE LEAVE USED AS A STICK AGAINST UNIONAL RIGHTS
This practice, which caused the employers to circumvent the dismissal ban, not only made the financial livelihood difficult for the workers, but was also used as a stick against the union rights. The dismissal of unionized workers, who we encounter frequently in working life, came to us as taking unpaid leave this time during the pandemic process. In this sense, working life started with the struggle of the workers who were taken on unpaid leave because they were union members. The most recent example of this was the resistance of workers in the warehouse section of the store chain Migros, who were given unpaid leave because they were union members. Unions, on the other hand, once again called for the unpaid leave application to be abandoned in order not to experience such scenes again.