‘Boss Doesn’t Give Soap, Customers Leave Used Gloves on the Shelves’

* Photo: Alexas_Fotos / Pixabay

Click to read the article in Turkish

Like courier workers, post office employees and health laborers, market workers have also voiced the violations of rights that they encounter while trying to help the life go on amid Covid-19 pandemic.

A woman worker, one of numerous others "who cannot stay home" in the days of coronavirus, has spoken to bianet about her days at work.

She works as a product specialist at different markets. Minimum wage+food+transportation expenses... Her already not easy conditions have become even more difficult during the pandemic.

'When the team changes, we understand that they fall ill'

She tells us that though she has not yet caught the disease, several of her friends have tested positive and "show goes on" in spite of everything. A worker who gets sick is sent home for three days and a new staff start working under the same conditions. Until they get sick too...

I ask her how she knows that the others have tested positive. "When a team changes at a market, we understand that the old one has got sick. We are told that they have taken a leave, but given that the whole team cannot be granted a leave at the same time..." she answers.

'They rest for 3 days at home, then get back to work'

She is afraid of "carrying" the virus as her friends:

"I am working at different markets as a product specialist. There are thousands of people doing my job. We actually do the same thing with the store personnel, we put the products on the shelves, we deal with the products, we are inside the market all the time. We are more like subcontracted workers. I leave one market to enter another, perhaps, we are also walking around, transmitting the virus to others.

"There are several people working in the field. Those who get sick go home and come back after having a rest for three days. That is why there is constantly a need for personnel. And it is how the disease is spread.

"The ones who bring market or online orders to homes catch the disease because they enter and leave homes and they transmit it to others."

Announcement: 'Don't wear masks, customers get disturbed'

What about the attitude of the employer and customers?

"Toilets and dining halls are very dirty. We consider ourselves lucky if we can find liquid soap, let alone disinfectants. There are disinfectants on the customers' side, but they don't give us."

She is constantly working at different markets because she is a product specialist. She says that different brands have different attitudes, but "the customer is always right."

"We could not protect ourselves at first. We were wearing masks because we were afraid. Announcements were made at the market: 'Don't wear masks, customers get disturbed.' As it is obligated now and as a fine is imposed, they themselves start telling us to wear masks."

'No one can ask customers why they act like that'

There is also an obligation of social distance at the markets, but she says that customers do not care about it and markets are still very crowded:

"People are weird... Some of them even tuck their gloves, I mean, their rubbish into a corner of the shelves. We cannot warn them, they react when we say something. And no market worker can ask a customer 'Why are you acting like that?'. They are constantly warning us to not go against customers." (AS/SD)