From Stage to Rehearsal: Three Days with Opera and Ballet Workers in Samsun

From Stage to Rehearsal: Three Days with Opera and Ballet Workers in Samsun

February 20–22, 2026 – Samsun

As part of our fieldwork, our union spent February 20–22 at the Samsun State Opera and Ballet. Over three days we visited workers where they work: we talked with dancers in the studio and with the orchestra between rehearsals, and closed the visit with a meeting open to all staff.

Our delegation was made up of our General President, our Legal Secretary, who is an artist with the Bursa State Symphony Orchestra, and our Press Secretary, who comes from cinema. Our General President opened by recalling that Kültür Emek-Sen is a fully independent union, affiliated with no confederation.

Workers should make unions compete

Our General President stressed that the collective agreements signed over many years have left out the specific problems of arts institutions, artists and technical staff, and that no meaningful right has been won in this field for more than a decade. Unions should compete for workers, he said, not the other way around, and workers need to hold them to that.

Moving from contract to permanent posts: do not waste money on lawyers

The question raised most often was how colleagues who moved from contract (4B) status to permanent posts can have their earlier service counted, with the seniority and pay that comes with it. Some unions have offered to file suits for high legal fees. Our General President explained that we have been discussing this issue with the Deputy Minister of Culture and Tourism for seven months, and that the Ministries of Treasury and Finance and of Culture and Tourism had completed their work and sent the file to the Presidency. We expect the problem to be resolved shortly through an omnibus law, so he urged workers not to spend money on lawyers.

The flat-rate raise: we are at the Council of State

Flat-rate raises given to groups such as soldiers, gendarmes and nurses were not given to artists and technical staff. Because our law states plainly that these payments are made "in proportion to salary," we filed a case, which is pending at the Council of State. Our General President said that in our meetings the Ministry accepted that we are right, but that the Ministry of Treasury and Finance has so far withheld approval, citing austerity measures.

Without a duty allowance, pensions collapse

Artists and technical staff hired through special aptitude exams cannot be paid on the same basis as other civil servants. Because we are not an autonomous institution like TRT, the problem of additional pay indicators cannot be fixed by a board decision. The answer is a duty allowance: without it, pensions will fall to as little as three quarters of current income because of cuts to the multiplier rates.

Bring back accelerated pension credit

We are in talks with the Social Security Institution and the Ministry of Labor and Social Security to restore accelerated pension credit for chorus, orchestra, technical staff and ballet dancers. This right, which once allowed early retirement by counting 12 months of work as 15, was granted at one time and later abolished.

The chorus's forgotten clothing allowance

The clothing allowance won for orchestras in 2011 was postponed for chorus singers to the following year, on the grounds that they do not always wear tailcoats or suits, and was then forgotten entirely once bargaining authority changed hands. Winning this right for chorus singers too is on our agenda.

The interest and the questions we met in Samsun showed once again that these issues are shared in every corner of the stage. We will follow up on these talks and keep our members in Samsun informed.

Resolute until we win Kültür Emek-Sen