"General strike, general resistance": It is time to take to the streets!

Melisa Ay

The AKP government is forcing 4 million public employees and 2.5 million retirees from this group into poverty. The 8th Term Collective Labour Agreement, affecting 6.5 million people directly and 10 million including their families, was presented with a scandalous offer. The tricks played on public workers are now on the table for public servants.

The government presented its first collective bargaining offer, which would leave millions earning their living from labour, including public employees, to hunger and poverty. Minister of Labour and Social Security Vedat Işıkhan announced the shameful proposal: a 10% increase for the first half of 2026, 6% for the second half, and 4% for each half of 2027. This destitution offer failed to match the purchasing power lost by public employees. The AKP’s proposal amounted to a cumulative 16.6% in the first year and 8.16% in the second.

Memur-Sen’s demand for the first year totalled a cumulative 88% and 46% for the second year, creating a gap of 71.4 points for the first year and 37.84 points for the second.

Memur-Sen’s first response came from Chair Ali Yalçın: “We reject this unserious offer,” adding “Did we wait 19 days for this? Does it match market prices, rents, the reality of public employees? We see no offer to negotiate. The government is showing us the streets.” Although Memur-Sen said “We will be on the streets” after the offer, it refrained from making the strike call needed for effective bargaining. If no agreement is reached at the symbolic CBA table, the inevitable next step will be the Public Servants Arbitration Board. With most of its members appointed directly by AKP President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, the Board is likely to implement the rate signalled by the government.

KESK members gathered in front of the Ministry of Labour after the offer was announced. KESK Co-Chair Ayfer Koçak said “Today, tens of thousands of public employees are forced to work despite health or age because if they retire, their salaries will drop by more than half. Even the Arbitration Board’s decision for 2024 was 15% for the first half and 10% for the second half, and for 2025, 6% and 5%. The CBA table has become symbolic.”

Koçak noted that since 2012, in 7 terms, demands such as reflecting additional payments into pensions, correcting income tax injustice, the 3600 additional indicator, increasing rent–crèche–transport–meal allowances, and abolishing interviews have not been met. “Once again they are showing us death to make us accept malaria,” she said.

OFFER OF DESTITUTION

TMMOB also reacted to the shameful offer. TMMOB Chair Emin Koramaz called for a wage that allows public employees to live with dignity. In a written statement, he said “Public employees have been offered more poverty, insecurity, and destitution. These offers must never be accepted. Clearly, in the face of the bottleneck experienced by workers, the collective bargaining negotiations have become a theatre staged by the government. Engineers, architects, and urban planners, as the vanguard of science and technology, will not remain silent in the face of this attitude and will fight in all democratic arenas.”

NOT GOING HUNGRY NOW COSTS 865 TL A DAY

The government’s wages, not aligned with the poverty threshold, are also falling below the hunger threshold. The Research Centre of the United Metalworkers’ Union (BİSAM) announced the July results for the hunger and poverty thresholds. The hunger threshold, the food spending needed for a family of four to eat healthily and adequately, reached 25,952 TL, exceeding the minimum wage by 3,848 TL. The poverty threshold was 89,768 TL. For a single person, the poverty threshold reached 42,004 TL. The daily cost of healthy and balanced nutrition rose to 865 TL.

The highest daily cost group was fruit and vegetables at 280.74 TL. The second highest was milk and dairy products at 212.96 TL. Meat, poultry, and fish required a minimum daily cost of 161.61 TL. Bread cost 75.86 TL per day, oils 41.86 TL, and eggs 13.56 TL.

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ŞENOL EYÜBOĞLU: ŞİMŞEK AND THE ONE-MAN CHEATING GAMES

“These rates are a disgrace, with the cost of living so high there is nothing acceptable about them. For them this offer is ‘perfect’, but we do not accept it and do not even see it as an offer. Even looking at July alone shows serious losses. Our demand is to first rise above the poverty threshold, which we project will reach 97,000 TL in December. The lowest salary should be brought to this level first, then a real CBA should make year-specific calculations and create a negotiation environment. But they have ignored our losses and we already see that a much harder period of making ends meet is ahead.

They will apply the same trick they played on public workers to public servants, mortgaging the future of 6.5 million people. The current law is not one under which a proper CBA can be made. Neither the minister nor the so-called ‘authorised union’ Memur-Sen is truly authorised. In the end, an agreement will be signed based on the decision of Mehmet Şimşek and the one-man leader. Policies that load the economic burden on workers will continue more ruthlessly. No one touches the rich and capital; workers, peasants, labourers, and farmers keep giving more and more.”

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AZİZ ÇELİK: NO OBSTACLE TO DE FACTO AND LEGITIMATE STRIKES

“What we warned about for days has happened, the offer was no secret. Maybe the government will improve it by a few points, but I do not expect a serious improvement. In the end, the offer will not be signed and will go to the arbitration board. Memur-Sen said ‘Non-negotiable’ but has no action plan, no concrete timetable, and it is unclear what it will do in response. The gap between the offers cannot be closed through negotiation. In the end, when the board signs the rate the government wants, Memur-Sen will blame the board. Even in their speeches they avoid saying ‘government’ and refer to the government as ‘employer’, refraining from criticism.

Public employees must force their unions to take a strike decision. Although internal regulations do not allow civil servants to strike, international agreements make this legitimate under the Constitution. There is no legal obstacle to a de facto and legitimate strike; this is confirmed by Constitutional Court rulings. But Memur-Sen lacks the will to take such a decision. For the actions of KESK and Birleşik Kamu-İş not to remain limited, Memur-Sen must also take action.”

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BAHADIR BERDİCİOĞLU: “WORKERS AND CIVIL SERVANTS HAND IN HAND” JOINT STRUGGLE IS ESSENTIAL

“The public employer’s offer did not surprise us, they have made such offers before. It matches neither the expectations of workers and retirees nor our demands. What will follow is the staged sending of the offer to the board, and the arbitration board, acting like a notary, approving the public employer’s offer as it is. This has happened in previous agreements. We must free ourselves from what we have experienced in 7 contracts and from the union law that produces no solution to them, and win a free bargaining right completed with a strike through united and joint struggle.

We must continue the struggle around common demands, using our power from production, until we win our rights. This requires unity in struggle, including exercising our right to strike. The liberation of workers, retirees, and the poor lies in joint struggle. Strike is part of this. We are in talks with workers’ unions. For joint struggle, we are voicing our call for ‘General strike, general resistance’. We believe workers’ liberation lies in resisting the attacks on labour and the policies of this government through joint struggle and with ‘General strike, general resistance’.”

Note: This article is translated from the original article titled "Genel grev, genel direniş": Sokağa çıkma zamanıdır!, published in BirGün newspaper on August 13, 2025.