Turkey on strike to put bread on the table

TURKISH workers are striking in numbers not seen since the 1970s to demand pay rises that would enable them to buy a loaf of bread amid soaring inflation.

Sevda, 27, stopped working at supermarket chain Migros this month in protest after management fired 257 of her colleagues for walking out to demand a pay rise of four liras (22p) an hour, the equivalent of a loaf of bread.

“I am striking for my basic needs. I want to buy bread,” she said.

Since a 1980 military coup curbed union activity, this kind of industrial action has been rare in Turkey. But as the purchasing power of working-class Turks has been wiped out by soaring inflation, it has returned.

The independent Labour Studies Group has recorded more than 60 strikes, factory occupations, protests and boycott calls involving at least 13,500 workers in less than two months.

It shows no signs of stopping – Turkey’s official inflation rate neared 50 per cent in January, with unofficial estimates putting the rate even higher, particularly on staple foodstuffs.

Many families are now cutting back on their consumption of bread – a staple at every meal. With prices set by trade group the Chamber of Bakeries, bakers complain of struggling to break even amid soaring global wheat prices, even with government-subsidised flour.

But striking workers have won victories. Migros reinstated Sevda and her colleagues and gave them a pay rise.

DGD-Sen, the union which represents Migros employees, hailed their victory and said more would follow.

But Selva Demiralp, a professor of economics at Koç University, Istanbul, warned: “If anything, the wage-price spiral has the potential to increase inflationary pressures even further.”