Esen: “The Solution Against the Crisis Cannot Be Solved With the Paradigms That Created the Crisis”

The "Future of Work: Post-Pandemic Working Life" workshop organized by the European Center for Labor Questions (EZA) and the Lithuanian Federation of Labour (LDF) was held with the participation of labor organizations, including Memur-Sen. Vice President Mehmet Emin Esen, who attended the seminar on behalf of Memur-Sen, said in his speech that labour organizations should cooperate against crises.

Labour organizations from Türkiye, Serbia, Romania, Lithuania, Latvia, Portugal, Ukraine, Italy, Moldova, Denmark and the Czech Republic participated in the international workshop held in Lithuania, where changes and dynamics in post-pandemic working life were discussed.

Vice President Mehmet Emin Esen, who attended the workshop on behalf of Memur-Sen, where the changes caused by the global pandemic in working life and the risks in working life were discussed, said that, in addition to financial and economic crises, political crises, wars, climate-related natural disasters and pandemics deeply affect humanity. “These events caused great changes in history. Today, however, we see that all of these are happening at the same time and affecting humanity. I think we are experiencing a multifaceted systemic crisis. This is such a crisis that today, at least, humanity seems helpless in the face of this process. And we need to strengthen the principle of hope in the face of this feeling of helplessness.”

"The rulers are manipulating events and facts so that this crisis is not seen," Esen said, expressing that unions and labour organizations should act together in the face of crises, "We trade unionists, who put labour at the center of life, will never fail to remind us of the facts. We will continue to defend the real economy, production and labour against financialized life. Because we believe that a just world can only be established with labour.

For this, we need to see today's landscape well. We say that labour is the subject of production, not cost, and the way out is to establish a truly human-inclusive economic order based on co-production and fair sharing, based on this fact.” used the phrases.

Esen stated that while the richest 10% of the global population receives 52% of the global income, the poorest half of the population earns only 8.5% of this amount. The poorest half of the global income distribution earns only $4,000 a year. Global wealth inequalities are even more striking than income inequalities. The poorest half of the global population owns almost no wealth, holding only 2% of total wealth. By contrast, the richest 10% of the world's population owns 76% of the global wealth. The poorest half of the population has an average of $4,000 per adult, while the wealthiest 10% have an average of $771,000. We are talking about labour, justice and right on such a ground. And the pandemic, which has deeply affected humanity, has also plagued humanity in such great contradictions,” he said.

Expressing that they are faced with the possibility of high inflation and recession for the first time since the 1970s, Esen stated that this situation cannot be overcome with the current economic tools and said, “We have to go beyond the memorizations imposed on us by the current system regarding the economic crisis. On the other hand, as a result of the war and migration in the middle of Europe, people are being displaced from their homes. All these experiences are due to the system.

For example, pessimistic analyzes are increasing day by day at the point that the current climate crisis will confront us with a deeper crisis: Droughts, heat waves, hurricanes and other disasters are increasingly disrupting economic activities and threatening the harvest. This turns food crisis expectations into reality.”

Emphasizing that as the world of labour, they need to come up with a solution to these events, Esen reminded the manifesto of the International Labour Confederation established in Istanbul with the initiative of Memur-Sen and said, "We say that man is a strong being. With his will, he has the ability to break many games. In every belief, in every culture, people are precious and cherished. The most valuable act of human is labour. Labour has the power to change the whole world, starting with the human being, especially the worker. Therefore, we, as labour organizations united around this belief, are embarking on a new path for a new world together. Together we call it fair distribution. We call it justice and law that will encompass all humanity. We call it sustainable and fair climate policies for the future of humanity. We call equal pay for equal work, without discrimination between men and women. We call it a sincere and strong struggle for work worthy of human dignity. We underline the healthy family for a healthy society. We promise to fight for freedom of belief and conscience for an order without marginalization and discrimination.

And we say that people deserve a system where they can fairly share their resources and be fairly rewarded for their hard work, without being displaced. We call this solidarity, that's why we call it international organization," he said.