No widespread tests are being conducted, contact is not being isolated and working times have lengthened at plants and workers are infecting their families with the virus at an increased rate. Excluded from epidemic measures, workers are furious.
The measures announced by President and AKP General Chair Tayyip Erdoğan have once more left out workers. Speaking of being driven to death to keep the machinery humming, workers say the price of a worker’s life appears to be cheap in the cost accounting. Saying, “Enough now, we don’t want to die,” workers have expressed the need for unity for the outlook to change.
A worker employed at İzmir Aliağa-based PETKİM commented, “With us expecting at least fifteen days’ full closure with support for workers, the retired, small businesspeople and those on low incomes, the exact opposite happened. We were still sent to the plants so that the bosses could make money.” Noting that his and his family’s health were once more being ignored, the worker said, “They’re saying get ill, infect your family and die. It’s no big deal. You’ll serve our benefit until you die. There’s plenty to take your place when you go anyhow.”
For his part, a worker employed at Çiğli-based Akar Tekstil summed up the announced measures with the words, “Once more everything for production, for the machinery to run.” The worker remarked, “Visiting relatives and friends comes under spreading the virus but the plants where hundreds of workers work every day are passed over. This means if you’re going to cop the virus, cop it with the machinery running. A full quarantine in our homes for at least one month needs to be implemented. But this is a costly business for them. What’s cheap, though, is our lives.”
A female worker employed at Ege University said, “As a worker, I end up at a loss as to what to think. If there’s a complete fourteen-day ban, we wonder how we’ll pay for electricity, water, natural gas and rent. If there’s no ban, all our lives are in danger. I mean, it comes down to workers being stuck between a rock and a hard place.” Pointing out that announcing a curfew is devoid of meaning once factories operate, a worker continued, “Non-essential workplaces should be shut. Worker’s livelihoods should be assured so they don’t go hungry. I’m furious and mostly at us workers. If we don’t unify it’ll go on like this. They won’t think of us.”
And a metal worker said, “We’re calling for a 21-day closure with paid leave given. But our lives are nothing for them. Production continues with the lathes turning away, while workers are abandoned to their deaths.”
A Bosch worker from Bursa said, “What it comes down to is it’s just workers these bans don’t apply to. This amounts to saying this virus doesn’t infect us! Excluding us from the ban when factories are crawling with the virus shows the value attached to workers. The only thing both the government and the bosses think about is how to increase their earnings.” Also railing against the Turkish Metal Workers Union which is organized at the plant, the worker said, “When will the Metal Workers Union, which remains silent at us working to the death among the virus, raise its voice. Workers are dying and the union, government and bosses are silent.”
And a Turkish Metal Workers Union-member TOFAŞ worker commented, “I simply don’t see my kids on coming home from work for fear, if I do, of infecting them if I’ve got the virus. The Health Minister mentions the increases in Bursa at every opportunity. This business won’t be sorted out by exempting workers. What will come of it if my mum, dad and kids stay at home and I come and go to the factory every day?”
Stating that the bosses were profiting from the pandemic, a worker employed at Renault said, “They assign shifts as it suits them. They put one person on unpaid leave and can put another to work for twelve or sixteen hours. At least we used to be able to work within a pattern. Our working times were known, the shift we would be on was known and there were rest days. Not everything was good but at least we had a pattern. Now there is nothing certain about either our days or nights. One day comes and the boss says, ‘We haven’t been able to get any orders because of the coronavirus so you’re on annual leave.’ You use up your paid leave and you’re on unpaid leave. Then things get busy and this time the boss says, ‘We’re in the coronavirus process so we must prioritize our work at these times’ and then you start working flat out. The only thing the bosses think of is making a profit. It is of no concern to them if the workers are healthy or if society is healthy.”
In turn, a Turkish Metal Workers Union-member worker employed at B/S/H in Çerkezköy noted, “It’s us again that’s up against this virus. Covid-19 is basically spreading in factories. It’s so widespread at our factory that workers can’t be found to work on the production lines. Factories must first be halted to halt the virus.”
A textile worker from Çorlu, for his part, said, “Nobody’s sticking up for the worker. The bosses are even putting workers who’ve been in contact to work. Twelve-hour stints are even being imposed at a time of epidemic. We’ve now seen that the government pays no heed, either. And, when we work, we get the minimum wage while the boss earns. The government decides with the bosses in mind.”
In turn, a metal worker in Çorlu who caught the virus had the following to say, “It’s forbidden for workers and miners to come onto the street in Gebze. But it’s permitted to come out and work so as to toil among the virus and earn money for the boss. The epidemic is spreading in factories. I caught the virus working at the factory. I spent three days in hospital. I infected my entire family at home. The virus won’t be prevented if factories operate.”
A young metal worker employed in Kocaeli said, “My wife works in a supermarket. She had Fridays off but her day off was cancelled following the President’s announcement because, if you proclaim a weekend curfew, supermarkets are going to be packed on Fridays. You can’t have both production and precautions side by side. Looking at the decisions taken, thought was given to the bosses. The citizen is nowhere yet again.”
Another metal worker said, “Loads of people are sick at the workplace. I come home from work and from home to work. I have a six-month baby. I’m afraid something will happen to those at home. Going by the decisions taken, they’ve left the citizen high and dry.”
A worker employed at a tyre plant who caught the virus for his part commented, “There is both virus at the plant and there is shift production at the plant. We are even working rest days. The government says nothing but mask and distance. Yes, the restaurant is closed but workers are working packed together at the plant. You can’t get the virus under control without a three or four-week closure.” The worker then rattled off another concern of his: “Annual leave was also taken in the initial stages of the pandemic. Annual leave has finished. We’re now afraid that the plant will close and our wages will be docked. There are debts and loans. We’re at our wit’s end.”
And a petrochemical worker who caught the virus at the plant where he works said, “Once more, employers have got what they wanted. These decisions have no real-life counterpart. The impression is being given that measures have been taken at times when nobody is outside and nobody calls on anybody.”
Labour Party General Chair Ercüment Akdeniz, stating that the government was taking pandemic precautions along with the bosses while imposing the burden on workers, said, “Factories are on fire. A 21-day shut-down and social protection must urgently be put in place.”
Stating that workers had for some time been taking the disease home and the pandemic was spreading in factories thanks to the policies implemented, Akdeniz said, “The fire needs to be put out there. It has got out of control throughout Turkey.” Recalling that factories had been excluded from the announced measures, Akdeniz commented, “The weekday curfew times are between 9 pm and 5 am. That is, the curfew ends at the times works’ transport starts operating. In fact, they will take workers to the factories on late shifts and at weekends, too, by making special dispensations. Stress is placed on those aged under twenty, but workers are also exempted from this.”
Noting that the measures leave the basic productive force in society untouched, Akdeniz said, “They spoke to the Turkish Industry and Business Association and the Union of Chambers and Commodity Exchanges of Turkey and charted these measures with them, but they imposed the burden on workers’ backs once again. As we have stated before, a 21-day full closure and social protection should be put in place. If wealth tax is placed on millionaires, not the millions of poor, funds will be procured.”
Calling out to workers, Akdeniz said, “We must take our own fate in our hands, not just in striving for a livelihood but to enable us to live and safeguard our families’ lives. We must use the strength we derive from production, coax trade unions and organize in committees. There is no other way apart from struggling for our livelihoods and unifying.”
(Translated by Tim DRAYTON)
Hediye Levent
Yusuf Karadaş
Yücel Özdemir