Migros workers: The struggle goes on

A group of Migros workers launched a protest on 3 February at a warehouse in Istanbul’s Esenyurt district after the company offered only an 8 percent pay raise. 

On 8 February, the company called the police to the warehouse and a number of workers were detained. A day later, the company terminated the labor contracts of 257 workers for joining the protests. 

The workers are members of the Union of Warehouse, Port, Shipyard and Marine Workers (DGD-Sen).

The intensifying economic crisis in Turkey has become one of the major triggers of delivery workers’ protests in recent weeks. At the beginning of 2022, the Turkish Statistics Institute (TUIK) announced an official inflation rate of 36,08%, while independent economists and academics have said that the actual inflation rate is closer to 80%. However, many corporations chose to rely on the official inflation rate to limit the wage increase of workers to a minimum.

The food delivery company Yemeksepeti Banabi announced a mere 10% raise for its workers. This led to protests. Many other delivery workers of similar corporations, like Trendyol Express, Yurtiçi Cargo, Scotty, Aras Cargo, Sürat Cargo, Migros Warehouse started to protest against the small amount of wage increase they received. Trendyol Express workers managed to win an increase in their wages from 11% to 39%, but many other workers still continue to fight.

Workers throughout Turkey carried out 65 strikes between January 6 and February 14, according to the Labor Studies Community (EÇT), a group of academics, researchers and union experts.

In Istanbul and in Antep there were 22 strikes. There were five strikes in Izmir, four strikes in Kocaeli, and three strikes in Mersin.

New protest today

The trade union DGD-SEN has announced a protest in front of the house of Migros boss today at 1pm. 

It has been revealed that the workers, who were handcuffed and detained in front of Migros boss Tuncay Özilhan’s villa, which they went to on Friday to claim their rights, were now called by the subcontractor managers of Us-Group, for which they worked, and forced to resign in return for a one-year severance and notice pay.