İzmir Municipality’s subway workers go on strike after disagreement on collective bargaining talks

Duvar English

İzmir Metropolitan Municipality’s 625 subway and tram workers on July 31 went on strike after disagreement on collective bargaining talks.

The Turkish Railway Workers Union on July 18 said that their workers would go on strike on July 31 if a consensus could not be reached.

İzmir Mayor Tunç Soyer said the collective bargaining talks have been going on since Feb. 27 and they are the side that “want reconciliation.”

Soyer argued that they offer the best conditions among the municipal companies to the metro and tram employees. He said they offered highest net salary of 25,009 liras with a 105 percent increase, while the union demanded 39,685 liras.

“We wish we could pay higher salaries. However, both our responsibilities and obligations and economic realities require us to stay within these figures. We see that the numbers we offer to our employees are higher than many public institutions and private sectors in Turkey. From this perspective, perhaps İzmir does not deserve to have the only public workers strike in Turkey. While there are other methods to announce the demands of the workers, going on a strike directly, and even starting it at the beginning of the week, has caused serious grievances for our city and our fellow citizens,” Soyer said in a Twitter post.