To enter May Day in Turkey is not just to turn a calendar leaf; it is to witness again how labor is systematically devalued, how the sweat of the brow is rendered invisible and how millions are condemned to poverty.
There is now an unbridgeable gap between the rosy picture painted by official statistics and the reality of the market net. The economy growing on paper and the pots shrinking in the kitchen; the stories of prosperity told on the screens are colliding with the growing queues for subsistence on the streets.
Today, the “hunger line” is no longer a technical data; it has become the de facto standard of living for millions of working people. Worse still, poverty is no longer a temporary economic crisis; it has become an institutionalized social order.
The fate of the worker in this system is clear:
Borrowing while working, being deprived when retired...
The laborer, who tries to survive with credit cards and debt spiral in his active working life, is also deprived of his right to a decent life in retirement due to the Monthly Binding Rates (ABR), which are reduced after years of premium payments.
In other words, the system first exploits labor and then quietly pushes it aside in old age.
The Fractured Spine after 1980
The backbone of the labor movement in Turkey has been broken not only by economic policies but also by a conscious disorganization strategy.
In the pre-1980 period, despite a limited industrial infrastructure and a much smaller population than today, unions were not just wage bargaining structures; they were institutions that defended the dignity of labor, social justice and public conscience.
Today the picture is reversed.
Population has increased, production has grown, the number of workers has multiplied, but organized labor has shrunk.
Because this is the economic model; It does not like the organized worker, but the isolated worker.
It does not want those who seek rights, but those who accept their fate.
It sanctifies competition, not solidarity.
It rewards silence, not the union.
The Subcontractor Order: The Invisible Slavery of Modern Times
Subcontracting is not just an employment model; it is a contemporary mechanism of exploitation that evaporates responsibility, leaves rights unaddressed and condemns labor to precariousness.
In this system, the worker has a boss but no interlocutor.
There is accountability but no accountability.
There are workers but no security.
And then pulpits are set up...
Speeches are made
“It is said, ”Labor is the supreme value".
Yet on the morning of May 2, the electricity bill is still on the table.
Rent will still be paid.
The Sunday net will remain unfinished.
On the night of April 30, the worker slept poor,
May 1st is applauded,
On May 2, even more impoverished, he returned to the counter.
This is the reality of labor today.
May 1st: More than a Holiday
May 1st is not a day of nostalgia.
It is not a ceremony at all.
It is the name of defending the dignity of labor; of objecting to unjust distribution, disorganization and institutionalized poverty.
Because labor is not a crime.
Sweat is not a blessing, it is a right.
Living humanely is not a privilege, but a minimum condition for social justice.
To avoid being poor while working and deprived while retired...
To defend the right of labor, the dignity of sweat and fair share...
Despite everything; long live May Day!
Happy Labor Day.