Birleşik Kamu-İş Warns Government: "The Budget is for the Rulers, Not the People!"

📣 Tens of Thousands Rally in Ankara: Budget Rights for Workers and Retirees Demanded

The Birleşik Kamu-İş Confederation (United Public Labor) actively participated in the "Budget Rights for Retirees and Workers" rally, held on December 6, 2025, in Ankara's Tandoğan Square, organized under the call of Citizen Solidarity (Yurttaş Birlikteliği). The demonstration, attended by tens of thousands of retirees and laborers, featured a sharp critique of the current political authority by Confederation General President Orhan Yıldırım.

Saluting the participants as "esteemed retirees and workers who came for the right of their hard work," Yıldırım lamented the degradation of retirement's meaning: "Not 20-30 years ago... retirement meant peace and comfort. But today, unfortunately, retirement means deprivation, poverty, and the struggle to make ends meet."

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💥 Yıldırım: "The Source of Poverty is the 23-Year Ruling Party, Not External Forces"

In his address, Orhan Yıldırım focused on the root causes of the country's main economic woes, including unemployment, hunger, poverty, and high interest rates. Rejecting the narrative that these problems stem from "external forces," Yıldırım pointedly assigned blame:

"The address of the internal force is the AKP government that has ruled the country for 23 years."

The General President vehemently criticized the government's recent attempt to grant a lump-sum raise to a select group of public sector officials while leaving millions of other workers and retirees struggling. He proudly framed the subsequent withdrawal of this unjust decision as a triumph of collective organizing:

"They immediately backed down and withdrew that privileged raise easily. No force can defeat organized labor!"

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💰 Parliamentary Budget Favors the Rulers, Not the People

Addressing the upcoming parliamentary budget negotiations, Yıldırım argued that the proposed budget draft fundamentally fails to address the real challenges faced by the populace. He stated that the budget lacks fairness and public representation:

"There are new budget negotiations in Parliament. But the budget lacks the worker, the unemployed, the youth, and the retiree. It is once again the budget of the rulers (muktedirler), not the budget of the people."

Yıldırım emphasized that retirees are not asking for charity but for income that guarantees a life worthy of human dignity, earned through years of premium payments. He highlighted the disparity where European counterparts travel the world, while Turkish retirees are forced to work just to survive.

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📢 Birleşik Kamu-İş's Core Demands and Warning

General President Orhan Yıldırım called on the government, emphasizing that state prestige is measured by the welfare of retirees who dedicated their lives to the nation, not by palaces. His core demands included:

• Income worthy of human dignity, not salaries eroded by inflation.

• A budget for the people, workers, and retirees, not for crony capital.

• The welfare share and raises that are their inherent right.

Yıldırım concluded with a strong warning to the authorities: "If you do not lift your heads from your ostentatious lives and look at the retiree's situation, you will be forced to hear the voice rising from these squares increasingly louder." He closed with the historic labor slogan: “No salvation alone, either all together or none of us!”