Turkish minister touts labor union membership rate

By Gokhan Ergocun

GENEVA (AA) - Turkish labor minister has touted the rate of unionization among Turkish public employees, saying it has seen a remarkable increase.

Addressing the 106th meeting of the International Labour Organisation in Geneva on Monday, Minister of Labor and Social Security Mehmet Muezzinoglu said: “In the last 10 years, the rate of unionization among public employees has increased from 49.7 percent to 71.64 percent.”

Muezzinoglu also said labor union membership had reached 21.8 percent among all workers in Turkey.

“Compared to world trends, it is obvious that there is a very important positive development in Turkey towards social dialogue and organized society,” he said.

He said the rising trend was due to social reforms taken by the Turkish government.

“Their results are the clearest demonstration of freedom of association and social dialogue,” the minister said.

According to the minister, the union rate by Turkish workers increased by 50 percent compared with 2013, reaching around 1.5 million.

Mezzinoglu also called on the international community to share the burden of hosting refugees, reminding that Turkey was hosting 3 million people following its “open door” policy for Syrian refugees.

The financial burden of the policy has reached $25 billion, he said.

“It will be alleviated to some extent if we share this burden… Geographic proximity should not make any country directly responsible and contractor of this event,” he added.