Pharmacist Turgay Korkmaz, a worker from the warehouse of an e-commerce website E.E. and Evrensel Newspaper Editor-in-Chief Fatih Polat have spoken to bianet about their work life in Turkey in the days of Covid-19 pandemic.

Central Bank has reduced the policy rate (one-week repo auction rate) from 9.75 to 8.75 percent. Referring to the spread of the coronavirus, the bank has indicated that it continues to take expansionary measures in this context.

Despite the pandemic, thousands of workers continue to work at the shipyards in Tuzla, İstanbul.

Highway construction worker: “We are told that if we want to leave, we are free to do so. We can, of course, leave. We would rather starve to death than endure so many insults. But we have families, we are not responsible only for ourselves.”

Yusuf and Emre have spoken to bianet: “They gave us a black mask. One of those that you can wash… As gloves, we wear our construction gloves. They put liquid soap at the washbasin, nothing else… If we catch the disease, we will die away from our families.”

In its second weekly report on the effects of the pandemic on its members, the DİSK has noted that “as its data only cover unionized workplaces, it is possible to say that the rate of Covid-19 cases is much higher in non-unionized or unregistered ones.”

Thousands of workers have lost their income due to forced unpaid leaves and halt of production and services, the report says.

Working in textile for 15 years, Türkan is one of those who cannot stay home: “It is like we, workers, would save the country from the outbreak. It is as if the country would collapse, if they halted constructions and textile for three months…”

Confederation of Progressive Trade Unions of Turkey (DİSK) has documented the impacts of Covid-19 on its members in a report. While the production has been halted in 47 workplaces, over 51 thousand members have been directly affected by the outbreak.

Health and Social Service Laborers’ Union (SES) has released a monthly report amid Covid-19 pandemic: “Healthcare laborers should know that in case their health and lives are at risk, they can halt work until the necessary safe conditions are ensured."

The Fund expects Turkey to have an unemployment rate of 17.2 percent at the end of the year.

Some of the six million street vendors in the country can neither work nor receive aid from the government, says a finance expert.

Knowing that they might have Covid-19 with little or no symptoms, many people take the risk and continue working for the fear of losing their jobs, according to the Workplace Doctors' Association chair.

Long working hours, the breaks they are not allowed to take, overtime wages they are not paid… A courier worker has spoken to bianet about their workload and demands amid coronavirus outbreak.

The Leather, Textile, Shoe Workers’ Association has released its Refugee Workers Report. Based on face-to-face meetings with 100 workers in İzmir, the report documents the hardships experienced by refugee workers in their work lives.

A market worker has spoken to bianet about her days during the pandemic: “Toilets and dining halls are dirty. We consider ourselves lucky if we can find liquid soap, let alone disinfectants. We cannot warn customers, some of them tuck their gloves in shelves.”

The TurkStat has announced the labor force statistics for January.

The Şok grocery chain has recently introduced home delivery due to the coronavirus pandemic.

More than 800 thousand people aged between 18 and 20 have been exempted from the curfew. Union representatives say the decision is discriminatory.

According to the Health and Safety Labor Watch report, at least 113 workers lost their lives in occupational homicides last month. While 14 workers died of coronavirus, two of the deceased workers were children working in agriculture and metal sectors.