KESK Financial Secretary Gönül Kural Şimşek stated that as long as policies in favour of war and capital continue, poverty will increase even more.

Gönül Kural Şimşek, Financial Secretary of the Confederation of Public Workers' Unions (KESK), spoke to ANF.

Reminding that a large part of the 2022 budget is devoted to war, Şimşek said: “There was a serious fracture with the workers under the AKP government. The reason why the government insists on war is to separate the working people. It had similar discourses in previous periods, and it succeeded in separating them. The AKP is trying to increase the vote by separating the workers with war policies and nationalist rhetoric because it has lost power, but war policies and cross-border operations are no longer accepted by the workers. The first item on the agenda of the workers is the economic crisis.”

Living below the poverty line

Expressing that the economic policies of the government are in favour of capital, Şimşek continued as follows: “The government wants to show itself as worker-friendly, but we see that the gap between the rich and the poor has increased as a result of the economic policies it has implemented. Public workers live below the poverty line. The minimum wage became obsolete within a few months. If these policies continue to be implemented in the upcoming period, poverty and the melting of salaries will continue.”

Government creates internal and external enemies

Noting that the government feeds off this chaotic environment by creating enemies inside and outside, Şimşek said: “It has nothing else to use. It wants to increase this chaos even more as the election starts. We see examples of this: the Gezi file, the punishment given to Canan Kaftancıoğlu, the new regulation on the press law, that is, the pressure on all opposition groups is an indicator of how desperate the government is. The arrest of 16 journalists in Diyarbakir is also due to government desperation.”

Workers must fight together

Emphasizing that the workers should not be deceived by the government, KESK Financial Secretary Şimşek underlined the need for a common discourse against the war, and added: "Workers of all nationalities, Kurds, Turks and Arabs, have no choice but to fight together. As long as we can't hold a discourse against the war, unless we can build a strong front against the war, the working people will continue to be segregated here.”