HDP co-chair says politics needs to ‘assume risks’ to improve workers’ life standards

KOCAELİ – Doğan News Agency

DHA photo

Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) co-chair Selahattin Demirtaş has said the current situation for Turkish workers was a bad one, adding politics needed to assume risks and parliament needed to take a radical decision to reverse their situation, which would begin with the forging of a new constitution. 

“If we want to make our laborers, our workers, our employees obtain a humane level of living then politics needs to undertake risks and also parliament needs to start taking radical decisions to change the constitution [in a way] which would change the entire course of events,” said Demirtaş on Oct. 26, during his visit to the Serapool factory, which has had its workers on strike for the past 137 days. 

Later in the day, Demirtaş apparently slammed the Justice and Development Party (AKP) government, without mentioning them by name, saying they were “worshipping great business towers.” 

“You know they say ‘We are inaugurating mosques, we are respectful to religion.’ No. Do you know what their minaret is? Great business towers. Now they worship these. These [business towers] are their houses of worship,” said Demirtaş, at a meeting held to draw attention to the environmental problems in Turkey’s western industrialized province of Kocaeli. HDP deputy Ali Haydar Konca was also in attendance at the meeting. 

Kocaeli, which is located to the east of Istanbul, is known for being a highly industrialized province, which has caused environmental issues affecting the health of its local residents. 

Demirtaş added there was no work safety either in the private or public sector, adding workers did not earn the salaries they actually deserved.