Negotiation of salary increase for public employee continues

The process continues in the negotiation of the Framework Protocol of the 2023 Public Collective Labor Agreement, which concerns more than 700,000 public sector workers.

Türk-İş President Ergün Atalay and Hak-İş President Mahmut Arslan visited Minister Bilgin. The meeting, which was also attended by the delegation of the Turkish Heavy Industry and Services Public Employers Union (TÜHİS), lasted approximately 4.5 hours.

“We have passed a certain stage”

Türk-İş President Ergün Atalay and Hak-İş President Mahmut Arslan made a statement to reporters after the meeting.

Stating that the meeting was productive, Hak-İş Chairman Mahmut Arslan said, “As a result of this meeting, we passed a certain stage. I hope we will meet the Minister again next week. We will do our best to reach a final agreement in the collective agreement. Dear Minister, As TÜHİS, Türk-İş and Hak-İş, we are really making an effort to conclude this collective agreement as soon as possible. However, we have not yet been able to reach consensus on all issues, and full consensus has not been reached. We will continue to fight for this,” he said.

“OUR DESIRE WAS TO SPREAD THE NUMBERS TODAY”

Türk-İş President Ergün Atalay stated that the public expects a number from the talks; However, he said that he was not in a position to give a figure and said, “Our wish was to say the numbers given today. More recently, the base salary was 12,000 lire and there was an increase of 40 percent. Other than that number, all unions have specific workplace issues. There is labor charge, service charge, night work, shifts. Today we solve some of them; But as for the figure, they said that most likely both the Minister and the employers’ union will bring us a figure on Tuesday of next week.”

Atalay recalled that negotiations began on January 20 and that the workers wanted these meetings to take place as they wished, and said: “If they give an adequate number, what are you going to do? If they don’t, there is no verse that says ‘We will finish this matter before the elections’. That they satisfy the demand of a family of 3 million as soon as possible. Tuesday will be the last, after Tuesday there is no point in meeting anyway. Hopefully, on Tuesday they will bring us a figure on minimum and maximum wages. There are a couple of issues that we get stuck in the administrative articles, they are resolved and the contract is made. We don’t want a small number here,” he said. (DHA)