Health workers to go on strike in Turkey for better wages, employee personal rights

* Photo: TTB

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The Turkish Medical Association (TTB), Turkish Dentists' Association (TDB), Health and Social Service Laborers Union (SES), Progressive Health Workers Union (Dev Sağlık-İş), All Radiology Technicians Union (TÜM-RAD-DER) and Social Service Specialists Union (SHUDER) have unveiled a new action plan to demand better wages and employee personal rights.

According to the statement of the organizations, healthcare workers will be on call on January 26 - February 4 and on strike on February 8.

Addressing the public, the healthcare workers' labor and professional organizations have recalled that "with the Transformation in Healthcare Program, the rights of healthcare workers have been undermined and the field of healthcare has been knowingly and willingly collapsed."

The organizations have underlined that "in no stage of these steps were the objections of the healthcare workers' labor-professional organizations taken into consideration, which has led to a destruction."

Reiterating that the working life in healthcare has become "unsustainable", they have noted that "the problems apparently stem from the healthcare system". Underlining the importance of preventive health services, they have said, "A budget not allocated to health and labor is the biggest source of lack of health. These demands of healthcare workers and the people's demand for the right to health cannot be considered separately."

"We, as the ones who produce the labor, say that a new healthcare system is possible," the labor and professional organizations have said, announcing that they will initiate a joint program for struggle.

The organizations have once again lashed out at the withdrawal of the legislative proposal foreseeing improvements in the wages and employee personal rights of dentists and physicians until an uncertain date.

They have demanded that the scope of the proposal be extended and submitted to the Parliament: "If the proposal is not submitted to the Parliament, we will be on strike as a warning on February 8 and we would like to declare to the public that we are ready for strike indefinitely."

Accordingly, ahead of the Doctor's Day on March 14, the organizations will distribute their joint declaration to healthcare workers on January 24; they will be on call from January 26 to February 4, on the days when the Parliament is open; and they will be on strike on February 8.

Concluding their statement by reiterating their demands, the labor and professional organizations have listed a series of demands including the formation of primary care health services with preventive health services prioritized, providing all healthcare workers with a basic income above the poverty line in such a way that it also affect their pensions, enacting a holistic law on occupational diseases, especially covering COVID-19, enacting a law on violence in healthcare and planning safe workplaces and end to appointments not based on meritocracy, investigations, security investigations and anti-democratic practices imposed by Statutory Decrees.

(AÖ/SD)