Probably one of the issues that occupied the agenda the most in the first week of June was the dispute between Izmir Metropolitan Municipality (IzBB) and the General Services Workers Union of Turkey (Genel-İş). The parties to this tension were almost everyone!... Dozens of mostly nonsensical issues such as ‘workers’ rights‘, ’equal pay for equal work‘, ’right to strike‘, ’worker hostility‘, ’selfishness and superciliousness of Izmir residents‘, ’accusations against Eastern citizens‘, ’CHP municipalism‘, ’yellow unionism‘, ’whether DİSK is an apparatus of the AK Party' came up.
The issue was the strike of 23,000 municipal workers and the paralysis of basic municipal services. Seven days that were at the top of the country's agenda, creating a perception that IzBB, or rather Mayor Cemil Tugay, was an ‘enemy of workers’, just as the reactionary authoritarian government wanted!... Of course, only for some people, because many other people did not stop talking about the union and the municipal workers.
WHAT WAS THE NEED FOR ALL THAT FUSS!
According to DİSK Aegean Regional Representative Memiş Sarı, workers at the municipality's subsidiaries İZDOĞA, İZBETON and İZULAŞ were paid 59,000, 64,000, 74,000 and 81,000 TL, depending on their jobs. The salaries of the striking workers at İZELMAN and İZENERJİ were between 36 thousand TL and 40 thousand TL. This is the issue of ‘equal pay for equal work’...
Sarı said that they started the five-and-a-half-month-long raise negotiations with a demand of 80 percent and revised it to 45 percent at the last stage, while the municipality offered a 29 percent raise. In the end, after all the fighting, the union settled for 30 percent. This, of course, is another oddity!... The agreement was not on the wages and rights demanded by Genel-İş, but on a formula that IzBB had to give reluctantly. After the strike, IzBB raised its raise offer from 29.16 percent to 30 percent for the first six months and from 10 percent to 19 percent for the second six months. The union accepted this offer. Thus, while the lowest salary in the municipality was 66 thousand TL, the highest salary increased to 81 thousand TL. That is close to the poverty line. The income needed to meet the poverty line, that is, the income that needs to enter the household to meet basic needs including food expenditures... That amount is 81 thousand 734 TL; it corresponds to the highest wage of the employees in the municipality. Of course, this is the income that enters the household, otherwise the average wage of a worker in this country is one click more than the minimum wage.
EVERYTHING GOES WRONG IN LOCAL GOVERNMENTS
Of course, at the root of this issue lie structural economic problems, particularly inflation. There is no need to explain again and again that the AK Party governments and the Presidential Government System (CHS) are responsible for this; the people already know this.
But there are many problems that have emerged in the dust. Everyone is focused on the union and the municipality, but at the heart of the matter is a general problem, namely the failure of the disinflation process to succeed and the recession that has come on top of it, and the structural problems of the local governments, which have become gangrenous and must be solved... We see the first one every day. The second one is an issue that every official knows about, but has never taken a step towards a solution... Local governments are paralyzed. This distorted order continues by pretending. The strange thing is that even those who pretend to be uncomfortable with maintaining this order do not have a proper example!
We already know that the AK Party's municipalism is characterized by corruption, a culture of charity, and the looting and squandering of public resources. It is also clear that there is favoritism and corruption in a few municipalities of the MHP. The IYI Party already has a few municipalities, I don't know what they are doing, but they are certainly not great. That leaves the CHP and the DEM Party, both of which don't have much to point to as an example. There is less corruption, investments may be a bit more rational, but when it comes to nepotism and populism, they fit in well with the caravan that is going wrong.
ALL FORMS OF TUTELAGE, OBSTRUCTIONISM, VISIONLESSNESS AND HYPOCRISY
The problems surrounding municipalities are endless: The tutelage of the central authority, that is, the authority of the appointed over the elected, and as if that were not enough, the trusteeship comes to mind first... In addition, the lack of financial autonomy should be among the most important problems, perhaps even the first... Equally important is party tutelage, that is, the fact that mayors are somehow obliged to fulfill the requests or orders of party elders... As for the employment policy, it is a complete disgrace, partisanship, nepotism, nepotism, nepotism, ‘micro trustees’ sent from metropolitan municipalities, useless consultants shined up by some subsidiary non-governmental organizations... The result is unnecessary bloated, meritless, bloated staff with no business ethics! Supposedly, the share of wages in the municipal budget should not exceed 30 percent of the total budget, what a lie! Almost every municipality masks this by doing something in the budget. In many, 70 percent of the budget goes to wages. Which basic service can you provide properly with such a budget? How can you free the municipality from the burden of debt?
In order to solve these problems, a local government reform must be carried out with the participation of the people. This should not be an evolutionary process, it should be a major surgery. There is no other solution for participatory, democratic, efficient and effective municipalities. Of course, this is a matter of mentality and it is not possible in an environment dominated by this low political culture. This is roughly the situation...
These problems related to local governments and the state of trade unionism are a whole different set of problems! DISK is the main actor in what happened in Izmir, but it would be useful to leave the other unions in the confederation aside and say a few words about municipal unionism. The situation of the unions organized in municipalities is another factor in the quagmire that local governments are in.
‘MOMENTARY SHIFTS FROM ‘MY DARLING PRESIDENT' TO 'WORKER HOSTILITY'
The relations between the unions organized in the municipalities and the municipal administration are shaped by the nepotism, lack of merit, and cronyism I mentioned above. This applies both to the unions where municipal civil servants are organized and to the unions where municipal workers are organized... It is a bit like the dirty and simple relationship between local newspapers and the municipal bureaucracy! If there is a common network of interests, it's ‘my dear municipality’, and if things are not going well, it's ‘corrupt municipality, enemy of the people’... In addition to this, of course, there can be a lot of political foot-dragging involved. Let me remind you of some of the strikes and their timing, which coincides with the periods when the candidate candidates are fighting each other on the eve of the elections, usually in CHP municipalities. The most striking of course is the appearance of mountains of garbage on the streets and avenues, something that usually happens if the mayor is running for re-election. Scratch the surface and you will find a connection between the leadership of that branch of the union and a candidate. I personally observed an example of this in Şişli in the 2019 local elections, but this time it was clear that the DSP candidate against the CHP had something to do with it. A similar example happened in BELTAŞ in Beşiktaş right after a previous election. You can multiply the examples. Just looking at the developments in Izmir, it is possible to intuit a connection between the previous mayor's actions and the union leadership.
PLAYING ‘REVOLUTIONARY’ WITH POLITICAL FOOTWORK
Let's talk about the attitudes and statements of the union leaders... Do you want low political rhetoric such as winking at the government by bragging that they have 500 thousand votes in Izmir together with their families, putting the mayor in difficulty in the eyes of his party, or nonsensical dialogues with the mayor in front of the garbage? All of this has happened... We already know that DİSK has moved far away from class unionism since the 1980s, but it is sad to witness such a low level of current politics! Of course, it is not possible to agree with the claims of some fanatical CHP supporters and their attacks bordering on worker hostility. It must also be said that Cemil Tugay has almost zero public relations and oratory skills, let alone crisis management, which is a must for mayors. By the way, I am sure he has been tripped up by many politicians in his own party. However, there is nothing more unfair than labeling him as an ’enemy of labor‘. And this is due to the populist attitude of some other mayors. He is being a bit honest and saying ’If I pay these wages, I cannot provide even basic services to Izmir residents“ and this is a valid situation for municipalities that lack financial autonomy.
However, there is a background to the ongoing tensions and rhetoric between IzBB and Genel-İş, which is a result of the accumulated problems and distortions in both Turkish politics and local governments. In fact, it is a result of the political and social decay in Turkey in general... And every sector gets its share from this.
ENEMIES DO NOT DO WHAT THE PREDECESSOR DID TO THE SUCCESSOR!
First of all, let's rewind a bit and take a look before the last local elections. Some of the mayors who were candidate candidates hired people from their own party or parties in alliance with them, or the names suggested by them, to work in the municipality. When they got stuck in the nomination process and failed to become a candidate, they did everything they could to put a sock in the future of the candidate from their own party. They were the ones who acted generously in collective labor agreements as if they were spending their father's money, and they were the ones who turned the municipality into a double municipality. Those suffering from power poisoning, who see their candidacy as a divine command, do not refrain from adding fuel to the fire, even though they are the cause of all these problems. Tunç Soyer, who was the mayor of IzBB in the previous term, is no different. Look at the sentences he uttered in his statement on the collective labor agreement he signed in the last days of his term: “Local The collective bargaining agreement that we signed five days before the election, covering 5,800 workers, was portrayed as the cause of this strike. However, at that time, many candidates, including our metropolitan mayoral candidate, were very clear that the signing of the contract would contribute positively to the votes they would receive, and they wanted it to be done as soon as possible. Therefore, under the conditions of that day, we signed the collective bargaining agreement because I knew that it would have the effect of facilitating the newly elected administration, rather than making it difficult, and because the negotiations carried out through SODEMSEN resulted in an agreement”. A statement like “I mean, I did it, others supported it, they would have done it anyway”! Isn't this a very ethical and Izmir people-minded statement!
What about IzBB Mayor Tugay's claim that Soyer hired 11-12 thousand people during his last term... Soyer says it was not that many, that's all. But when he made those contracts, did he ever calculate the SSI premiums? Apparently, he must not have cared, because he left a serious Social Security debt to the Tugay period. According to the Ministry of Labor and Social Security, IzBB's SSI premium debts increased 885 times in the last five years and reached 5.4 billion TL. This means that Soyer is responsible for a significant part of this debt. If you inflate the staff, you cannot pay SSI premiums, the arithmetic is that clear... Didn't these premium debts become a weapon in the hands of the AK Party after the 2024 elections and hit CHP municipalities? Isn't it still doing so?
If you remember, there was a contest among the mayors of the CHP, especially the ‘left-wing’ mayors of the CHP, who had a strange understanding of public municipalism: ‘I pay my workers the highest salary’. This competition based on dressed wages is all well and good, but only if you don't engage in fiddling in municipal employment policies, if you don't inflate the staff with excessive and unqualified personnel! All those who bragged about it were also inflating their staff.
THE RACE FOR ‘LABOR’ BY ROTE!
What happened in Izmir is the chain reaction of such a chain reaction of inaccuracies... And then there are those who are at the bottom of the hamas... Amidst all this dust and smoke, the attitude of socialists in particular has literally been ‘running with salt to those who say they have a prick’! Let's say it was a reaction to the vulgar gestures of the CHP voters, some of whom followed Yılmaz Özdil and insulted the workers, but in general, one should not ignore the hollow hamas. Most of those who hurled insults at the mayor and the mayor in particular, in a mishmash of memorization, blind union defensiveness and CHP hostility, did not even know the subject matter. I cannot help but add one more thing: anyone who knows how much the employees of some socialist parties’ media outlets are paid, what social rights they have and the working hours they work. I think it is also worth reminding how some employees' employment contracts were terminated in order to avoid compensation. I won't embarrass them here by giving examples, but there are plenty of examples and many people know this.
I can understand those who know this and remain silent, but I think it is necessary to question the morality of those who shamelessly preach ‘ouvrierism’! For example, those who employ foreign workers in their small businesses at wages below the minimum wage without registration or without insurance are not few!
Let me not be long... I think the most fundamental issue that needs to be discussed is the current predicament of the municipalities. The AK Party government is, of course, the main responsible for this predicament, but we should not forget the local government approach that has repeated many mistakes and allowed municipalities to become inefficient and fall into debt. From now on, it is imperative for the opposition to put the understanding of local governments on the table, especially the employment policy. It should not be forgotten that a municipality is an institution that is obliged to provide public service, not a job gate for you, me and our son! Before a mayor brags that “we pay the highest wages”, he should ask himself whether he is providing basic services properly or not!