International trade unions call on Turkey to withdraw omnibus bill threatening workers' rights

Thank you for alerting us to the draft legislation before the Turkish parliament, the Grand National Assembly, that threatens job security and workers' rights and promotes temporary employment. The united opposition of our Turkish affiliates to this legislation must be listened to by the government and politicians, and we express the full solidarity of the European and global trade union movement for your efforts to defend workers in Turkey.

While the authors of the bill argue that it will improve employability of young workers and those older than 50, it will deprive these workers of social protection, install a two-tier employment system based on age discrimination at workplaces and legalise precarious and undeclared work.

According to the proposed bill, employers will be able to impose fixed-term contracts on workers younger than 25 and older than 50 years old, which is a derogation from the open-ended labour contract system that is the norm in Turkey. The workers under fixed-term contracts will have no job security, and will lose seniority, severance pay and social protection benefits covering maternity, unemployment, invalidity, old age, death, occupational injury and disease. Deprived of labour protection, these workers will also face discrimination on the grounds of trade union membership and limitations on their right to collective bargaining. Taking into account that almost ten million workers will be affected, it is a severe blow to the entire labour relations system of the country, in violation of international core labour standards, and is nothing less than an attack on its trade union movement.

On behalf of the 200 million strong International Trade Union Confederation and the 45 million strong European Trade Union Confederation, Europe and the world's trade unions join our Turkish sisters and brothers in rejecting this bill and call on the government to engage and consult with them to introduce a real protection package which does not undermine but advances workers' rights and collective bargaining as the most influential mechanism to promote decent and secure employment. We will be ready to further support you in your actions, including by engaging relevant international mechanisms of labour and trade union rights protection, including those of the ILO, the EIJ and the Council of Europe.

Workers in Turkey, like everyone at work around the world, need a New Social Contract based on a universal labour guarantee, as set out in the ILO centenary declaration of 2019. We stand with Turkish trade unions in supporting their demand that this bill should be withdrawn.