Drivers strike for pay hike in Turkey

Drivers at Turkish e-commerce giant, Trendyol, refused the management’s offer of an 11 per cent pay hike, went on strike and won a 38.8 per cent wage increase, local Turkish media reports.

According to the report, thousands of car couriers working as independent delivery contractors at Trendyol, Turkey’s largest e-commerce platform, rejected a miserable wage raise offered by the company and stopped work across the country yesterday.

According to Bloomberg HT, Trendyol, most of whose shares were acquired by China-based Alibaba in 2018, had a market value of $16.5 billion in 2021, becoming the first company in Turkey to cross the $10 billion mark. Founded in 2010, Trendyol’s market value was $1 billion in 2018.

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Skyrocketing living costs are driving growing sections of the working class into a struggle, the report added.

In recent weeks, Çimsataş metal workers, Divriği iron mine workers and, most recently, Farplas automotive part workers in Gebze have stopped working due to wage disputes.

On the other hand, the leader of a Turkish opposition party, Kemal Kilıcdaroglu, recently tweeted that he will not be paying inflated electricity bills following January price hikes on basic commodities.

The country’s currency lost more than 40 per cent of its value against the United States dollar last year, following successive central bank interest rate cuts championed by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.