ANKARA - In its statement regarding Joint Worker Health and Safety Requests, İSİG drew attention to the unlawfulness experienced during the one-year pandemic process in Turkey.

 

Ankara Occupational Health and Safety Council (İSİG) made a written statement by calling on the United Struggle and to signing the Joint Worker Health and Safety Requests on May 1.  In the statement, which stated that the coronavirus (Covid-19) epidemic in Turkey has left behind a year, neither the requirements of science have been fulfilled during this period, nor the crisis caused by the pandemic can be managed, and the crisis has deepened more due to the health and social security system and arithmetically increased. It was pointed out that the number of cases and deaths, the epidemic crisis is not only a health crisis.

 

‘The places with the highest infection were the places where the wheels were spinning’

 

In the first months of the pandemic, the government responded as ‘the wheels must rotate’ to the demands of unions, professional organizations, political parties and democratic mass organizations for 14 days of paid administrative leave and closure compared to the incubation period. "In this period when the production of goods and services prioritizes public health to maintain capital accumulation, factories were given special work permits against the "stay at home" calls, the closed-circuit working system was put into practice, working hours in the workplaces were abandoned to the initiative of the employers, the workers continued to work. Covid-19 has been gradually transformed into a labor disease. The fact that the provinces with the highest level on the case maps are industrial basins. Places with the highest infection; factories, construction sites, shipyards, warehouses, markets, hospitals, and schools, in other words, were the places where work continued and "wheels were spinning" mentioned in the statement.

 

'861 workers lost their lives from the virus'

 

According to the data of the ISIG Council, at least 861 workers lost their lives due to Covid-19 between March 11, 2020, and March 10, 2021, and continued: "Without any coincidence, business lines that are most affected by the epidemic and have the most deaths, have the highest risk of contact, the least physical distance, personal protective equipment problems, and production and performance pressure are felt more, health, trade-office, general works, security, textile and metal businesses. In one year of the epidemic; 367 workers in health and social services, 228 laborers in commerce, office, education, cinema, 71 in the municipality and general business line, eight in the defense and security business line, seven in the petrochemical, tire business, bank, finance, seven laborers in the insurance business, six in the energy business, five in the press business, five in the construction-road business, four in the food and sugar business, three in the wood and paper business, three in the communication business, three in the cement, soil, glass business, two laborers in the mining business died as a result of workplace homicide caused by Covid-19. However, the available information is still quite insufficient. For example, nearly 10 percent of the working population are immigrants and migrant workers are the most insecure and poorly working segment of the working class, and migrant worker deaths could not be reached.”

 

‘Unemployment rate with broad definition among women workers is 35 percent’

 

It was emphasized that the disorganization situation in workplace homicides showed itself more on the epidemic scale, 94 of those who lost their lives were unionized and 767 were non-union workers. In the statement, it was stated that dismissals and unpaid leaves caused by Code-29 increased the basic problems more. The statement mentioned: “Workers who went on unpaid leave during the epidemic tried to survive with 50TRY per day. In 2020 alone, 177,000 workers were fired with the code-29 fraud. Millions of workers who worked in unsecured, informal, daily jobs remained unemployed. The broadly defined number of unemployed has exceeded 10,000,000. The broadly defined unemployment rate of women workers has exceeded 35 percent. The consumption ideology, reinforced with the understanding of "Life fits home", which has been transformed into the class distance under the name of "social distance", has crushed workers in certain business lines, especially warehouse, market, courier, and logistics, under the pressure of production and performance.”