2025 Collective Bargaining Agreement

THE 2025 COLLECTIVE AGREEMENT

With the 2025 collective agreement, the government has once again condemned 6.5 million public employees and pensioners to hunger and poverty. In the eyes of workers, Law No. 4688 on public servants' trade unions has lost its legitimacy.

Poverty for the Worker, Comfort for Capital

The Public Servants' Arbitration Board process, run by government appointees, which began on 23 August 2025 and concluded on 26 August 2025, has shown once again that it is a decision-making mechanism that disregards the sweat of public employees and deepens poverty. These decisions enlarge the palace budget while shrinking the bread on the culture worker's table.

We know this: no collective agreement that seizes the rights of those who live by their labour is legitimate.

From now on, Law No. 4688 has lost its force in practice. For public employees, the only way forward is a new, inclusive union law with the right to strike and genuine collective bargaining.

Summary of the Arbitration Board decisions:

Agreement was reached on 58 items in this round of collective bargaining. These items brought limited improvements for technical, health and legal services staff and for certain administrative positions.

Salary increases for public servants:

2026: 11% (first half), 7% (second half) 2027: 5% (first half), 4% (second half)

In the first half of 2026, the base salary was increased by 1,000 TL.

Concrete Effects in the Culture and Arts Sector

The Arbitration Board's decisions are far from solving the problems in culture and the arts:

The ceiling-wage increase for contracted artists is a mere 1,463 TL. Against an average ceiling of about 45,000 TL, this is an increase of roughly 3.2%.

With 2024 inflation at 44.38% according to TÜİK and 83.40% according to ENAG, this rate means a serious loss in real incomes.

The additional arrangements agreed in the culture and arts sector — for example +234 TL for stage supervisors, +293 TL in additional payments for choir conductors, and raising the overtime cap for library and museum staff — are measures that increase workloads while salaries melt away rapidly against inflation.

The Board's general raise (18% in total for 2026; 9% in total for 2027) falls below even official inflation. Against these inflation figures, it is evident that public employees will suffer major losses in purchasing power and living standards.

The data show that the decisions of the government and the Arbitration Board, far from improving public servants' purchasing power, cannot even preserve what exists. Year after year, decisions are taken that let salaries fall further behind. The authorised, government-aligned Türk Kültür Sanat union signed the collective agreement concluded with the government and did not even exercise its right to object. The arrangements made in the culture and arts sector in particular offer no qualitative solution; they contain only token improvements. The basic demands of public employees — wage increases above real inflation, a fair updating of artists' ceiling wages, and a base wage sufficient for a dignified life — were simply ignored. The Arbitration Board's decision is the product of a will that devalues the sweat of labour and condemns culture and the arts to poverty. This decision will bring no relief to our lives, our tables or our stages.

The current situation has rendered Law No. 4688 on unions void in practice. For public employees, the only way forward is a new, inclusive union law with the right to strike and genuine collective bargaining.

A special salary arrangement is essential for art institutions, from their artists to their technical staff, given how hard these positions are to fill. Our union will continue working, province by province, to make these approaches valid in all art institutions across Turkey, sharing the details with you and turning them into shared gains through common struggle, as we have done in the past.

We do not accept raises below real inflation, we do not accept poverty wages!

As culture workers we cry out once more:

OUR WILL SHALL GROW NOT AT NEGOTIATING TABLES BUT IN WORKPLACES, ON STAGES, IN WORKSHOPS, IN THE WINGS AND IN THE HALLS — THROUGH SOLIDARITY — AND IT SHALL RISE IN THE STREETS!

Because we know:

ART EXISTS NOT IN POVERTY BUT THROUGH FREE LABOUR!

Culture Workers' Union August 2025