A Worker at Ford Otosan in Kocaeli
Ford Otosan used to pay us promotions based on points calculated from previous years through the bank it had an agreement with. The issue of points being equivalent to 400 turkish liras, made it into one of the local newspapers last year after a friend of ours wrote a letter about it. In the factory everybody was unhappy with promotions being paid in points. It was not in our interest for the already low payments to be paid in points. This year, the points a worker had to earn in respect of a salary promotion was raised from 400 to 700 and was paid as cash. Showing that it can be paid in cash and not in as points. Why is it that this cash payment made by other banks as a three year lump sum is paid to us annually?
Our loss in real terms is significant since last year because we have been crushed by inflation. The year 2021 is the year of TİS (Collective Labour Agreements). We already know that their excuses will be ready. Every agreement period a range of excuses are created. They expect us to make sacrifices based on terror, economic crises, and we know that this year they will add the pandemic to this list. This is despite the fact that Koc Group and Ford Otosan have both added to their profits during the pandemic. Our living conditions have become tougher with the pandemic. We all are struggling to make ends meet. While we live like this, throughout the pandemic all sorts of assistance and incentives are being given to bosses. The minimum wage increase speaks for itself. Most workers at Ford Otosan, which belongs to the country’s giant conglomerate Koc, would all be paid minimum wage if it weren’t for bonus payments. Everyone who works here has debts. Either credit or their credit card is at limit, or to a trust or elsewhere. We are making ends meet by exchanging our debts with other debts. As our wages melt by the day, the cost of living is rocketing - we shop around various stores when trying to buy something. We are looking for the most affordable. We are having to do this in the middle of the pandemic. We don’t know the last time we ate meat to our heart’s desire. We have to reduce the number of meals we have at weekends. Most of us come to work without any breakfast. The production line is fast, life is expensive and our wages are minuscule! We delay purchasing new clothes and shoes to an unknown date, and repeatedly repair our old items. Most friends who smoke, have moved from cigarettes to tobacco.
While we are in this situation and as we have seen in previous periods, we know that the collective bargaining agreement discussions beginning in September will be a period in which MESS (Turkey’s Metal Workers Union) use the pandemic and economic crisis to suppress our wages. You cannot expect anything else from people who have used the turned the pandemic into an opportunity from the very start. We know this. We have to act together to remedy our losses in this agreement. This is the only way to get the wages we are entitled to and push our working conditions to a more humane level. We should discuss the problems we are facing now so that we can overcome these in the agreement. (EVRENSEL DAILY)
Hediye Levent
Yusuf Karadaş
Yücel Özdemir