Dear Cultural and Art Workers, Our Comrades in the Struggle

Dear culture and art workers, our comrades in struggle,

Since 2019, we have proudly carried forward, shoulder to shoulder, the de facto and legitimate struggle we launched under the banner of independent class unionism. While waging labour's fight for rights and justice, we have said at every opportunity — and turned into action — that we will not stop until a modern, secular, democratic legal order is built. Guided by these unshakeable principles, we have grown year after year, thanks to the face-to-face, solution-oriented relationships we have built and our will to identify and solve problems on the spot. In a short time we won authorisation in many symphony orchestras and in many workplaces across our sector, and we have come this far with our heads held high. We stubbornly resisted the 1% and 2% thresholds placed in our path, and we emerged from that resistance stronger. Today, our effort to enlighten the class movement across the country and our people continues at full pace, for the resolution of our most burning problems: inadequate wages, across-the-board raises that are not reflected in payments, grade-adjustment (intibak) crises and the heavy injustices of the tax brackets. But at this critical stage, we must raise even higher the strong wall we have built independently, give our union a younger and more dynamic structure, professionalise, and above all lift our capacity for representation to the highest level. The Birleşik Kamu-İş Confederation, one of the top three confederations with a voice at the collective bargaining table, recognised this strength and representational capacity of ours in our sector and invited our union under its umbrella. Following our assessments, we recognise that joining forces with Birleşik Kamu-İş will make both us and the confederation far stronger in attaining our rights.

Why Birleşik Kamu-İş?

• Power of representation at the table: it is the third-largest confederation with a say in collective bargaining under Law No. 4688.

• Shared principles: like us, it is Kemalist, people-oriented and public-minded, and defends free, autonomous class struggle without compromise.

• The same common goal: it has set the winning of "a genuine collective agreement with the right to strike" as its ultimate objective.

• A growing and dynamic structure: it is a growing organisation that brings young, dynamic workers into the process and contains unions from all 11 sectors.

• Sincere solidarity: its concrete and heartfelt support for our union's actions, events, training and organising work.

• Alignment of statute and vision: its statute is similar in character to ours, and it carries a vision of "growing through merger" with unions in the same sector in the period ahead.

We want to expand national and international solidarity, to stand shoulder to shoulder with all the confederation's sectors in the public-sphere projects we run in our country, and to share with all workers the potential our technical and artistic experience gives us.

To weave a professional and dynamic union struggle that blends quantitative and qualitative experience; for a modern, fully independent union line that shares accurate information with workers and embraces technological progress;

FOR A UNION LAW WITH THE RIGHT TO STRIKE AND GENUINE COLLECTIVE BARGAINING!

As culture and art workers, we ask for your support as we bring our struggle into the ranks of the Birleşik Kamu-İş Confederation.

Together, into the struggle.