Öz Sağlık İşçileri Sendikası
INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS
The Öz Sağlık-İş Trade Union founded in Ankara on February 27, 2014 has been operating in the Health and Social Services sector in compliance with the Turkish Act on the 6356 numbered Unions and Collective Labour Contracts.
The Öz Health and Social Services Workers’ Union (ÖZ SAĞLIK-İŞ) maintains its international relations with a holistic perspective based on mutual respect, trust, cooperation, and solidarity.
Our union is the second biggest among the HAK-IS Confederation affiliates and the third one throughout the country by (in) number of members.
THE IMPORTANCE OF LABOUR DIPLOMACY AND THE NECESSITY OF GLOBAL LABOUR SOLIDARITY
Öz Sağlık‐İş Union exercises due diligence in its organizing activities in the field and does not hinder the activities of other syndicates with which it is in competition in the sector. Öz Sağlık‐İş does not allow any pressure or discrimination against non‐member workers in the workplaces it is authorized, respects the relations of the workers with their unions and opposes the unfair behaviours of the employers.
HAK‐İŞ Confederation, of which Öz Sağlık‐İş Union is a sectorial affiliate/member, cooperates with other labour confederations such as the TÜRK‐İŞ and DİSK, of which the rival unions in the sector are members. The said leading labour organisations in Türkiye sometimes come together at many primary issues of the working life such as the minimum wage, the Public Framework Wages Protocol (KÇP). The results of these collaborations gain the appreciation of the society and reveal the importance of dialogue.
History has shown us one thing: when workers unite, we win.
We start by knowing what we are struggling for and whom we are fighting against and we continue by being aware of/for what we are struggling.
As ÖZ SAĞLIK-İŞ, we advocate the necessity of effective management of different types of dialogue mechanisms for the solution of all problems.
In this context, labour diplomacy should be strengthened to ensure that the working life issues should be decisively kept on the global agenda and that alternative solution proposals should steadily be sought. In this regard, we definitely believe in necessity of fostering labour diplomacy.
OUR UNION PROMOTES COOPERATION AND SOLIDARITY WITH GLOBAL UNION MOVEMENT
Our labour organisation completely believes in necessity of the Labour Diplomacy and definitely promotes it at global level. In this direction, the ÖZ SAĞLIK-İŞ Union consider usage of same language with global union movement important and then takes it as its duty to fight against inequalities, poverty, social exclusion, climate change, all types of discrimination, terrorism, forced displacement, genocide and conflicts.
That is why, ÖZ SAĞLIK-İŞ strives to get involved in intensive cooperation and solidarity activities together with the trade unions in the health and social services sector at global level for better, inclusive, comprehensive, stronger and more effective rights and freedoms to everyone, especially workers.
BILATERAL COOPERATION PROTOCOLS
“Beyond the conventional union understanding, our union acts in line with universal values, norms and standards, and (it) is in constructive dialogue with both global union umbrella organisations and other syndicates and structures which are to act in the same sector of different countries.
Our union attaches importance to developing bilateral relations based on the sharing of knowledge and experience by signing cooperation protocols with the syndicates which are active and operating in the health and/or social services sector in other countries.
Thanks to those cooperation agreements, the parties agree to conduct the following actives with an aim to develop bilateral relations via exchange information and experiences by taking into consideration of social and the economic life and recent development of their own countries:
-Exchange delegations to learn the experiences of working life and trade union activities.
-Help people and organizations of countries to build mutually beneficial relations.
-Take care of the informational work, exchange of literatures, newspapers, magazines and the materials about labor and trade union activities.
-Provide consulting services as well as training and teaching of experts of Trade Unions between two sides,
– Exchange the work programs for training and providing executives, experts, shop stewards and other participants for such programmes.
– Regularly communicate about the activity of mutual interest in the field of working conditions, wages, social and economic developments in order to inform each other, periodically
– Inform each other about recent developments in social policies like; social insurance in their countries.
On this occasion, we would like to remark that 17 pcs bilateral cooperation agreements were signed with 17 unions from different 14 countries, participating into the 3rd Ordinary General Assembly of the ÖZ SAĞLIK-İŞ Trade Union in Ankara on 19.11.2021.
As of April 2025, cumulatively, our Syndicate of ÖZ SAĞLIK-İŞ has signed bilateral cooperation agreements with 22 syndicates from 17 different countries which are Albania, Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Algeria, Morocco, Palestine, Kazakhstan, Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC), Kuwait, Lebanon, North Macedonia, Egypt, Mauritania, Senegal, Somalia and Ukraine.
In this framework, recent cooperation agreement between ÖZ SAĞLIK-İŞ Trade Union of Türkiye and The General Trade Union of Health Services’ Workers (GTUHSW) of Egypt signed by Mr. Devlet Sert and Mr. Ali Abdelbaset Ali Mohamed in Ankara on 14 November 2024.
In the coming period, we will keep on making great efforts to build new collaboration bridges with sister unions operating in the health and social services sector in other countries with the aim of achieving global labour solidarity all over the world.
THE ÖZ SAĞLIK-İŞ IS ONE OF FOUNDERS OF THE WORLD ISLAMIC HEALTH UNION
In these days, problems that threaten our world and all life on the earth, such as global warming, terrorism, poverty, food crisis, epidemics, drug trafficking, civil wars, refugee crisis, the widening income gap between the underdeveloped and the developed, trade wars, and energy bottlenecks, shape the agenda of global politics.
Since the 1980s, a different neo-liberal market economy has been built under the name of the ‘new world order’. Following the collapse of the former Eastern Bloc in the early 1990s and the dissolution of the Soviet Union, and the recent Covid-19 pandemic and intense digital transformation, the phenomenon of globalization is presented as the only option for the entire globe, especially for the Third World, where underdeveloped and developing countries are clustered.
Technological revolutions such as artificial intelligence (AI), augmented reality (AR), virtual reality (VR), 5th generation (5G) communication, the internet of things (IoT), and social media platforms that have penetrated every aspect of life, which have accelerated and become widespread under the influence of the Covid-19 pandemic, are changing and transforming manufacturing techniques, people’s lifestyles, especially their consumption habits, perceptions and behaviours.
Although the US administration aimed for a unipolar world order with the strategy of “global American hegemony” as the ultimate goal in the post-Cold War period, it was not successful.
In order to understand global politics and the policies of leading actors, there is a need to correctly analyse the war environment in Palestine, Syria, Yemen, Sudan, Libya and Ukraine. The lands of the countries in question have been turned into ruins.
Within this chaotic structure on a global level, initiatives for new balances against multipolar international disorder and uncertainty have been maintaining. Current picture of global order (disorder) presents an impression of a complex and unstable network of relations established on the balance of powers among the leading actors of the international system.
The responsibility of healthcare community has increased during these tough times when many regions of the Globe, especially the Islamic geography have become a complete mess. Nowadays, hundreds of civilians, majority of which are Muslims, get killed or injured, become refugees, are left starving and homeless every day.
We definitely believe that there are many activities that civil society organizations and labour organisations operating in the field of health and social services can globally carry out with a hope of alleviating the suffering of the innocent and oppressed.
This overall objective has required a stable, powerful and sustainable cooperation and coordination among the human-rooted NGOs and labour-based syndicates at global level.
In order to overcome this deficiency, Muslim NGOs which are active in health and social care fields in different parts of the world came together for knowing each other on 02-04 December 2016 in Istanbul by holding the World Muslim Health Societies Congress.
As a result of the consultations during this Congress, by getting support of Mr. Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Turkish President, it was decided to establish the “World Islamic Health Union (WIHU) by participation of 110 Muslim civil health organizations from 65 countries by hoping for that this union would be an ointment to wounds in the Islamic geography.
This Union is a legal entity composed of NGOs providing healthcare services in Türkiye and other countries, in other words globally, believing in human rights and the rule of law, abiding by the Islamic values, gathering at their own discretion and on a voluntary basis.
Head office of the WIHU is placed in Ankara, capital city of the Turkish Republic.
The ÖZ SAĞLIK-İŞ Trade Union is one of founding members of the World Islamic Health Union (WIHU, http://www.wihu.org.tr/ ). At the present, Mr. Devlet Sert is, President of ÖZ SAĞLIK-İŞ Syndicate, currently General Secretary of the WIHU ( www.wihu.org.tr ).
SUBMITTED OUR MEMBERSHIP APPLICATION TO EPSU AND PSI
ÖZ SAĞLIK-İŞ Trade Union took the first step on 15 January 2020 at international level in order to be the strong and unanimous voice of our members, that are considered as our brothers and sisters working in the health and social services sector, and in order to have their expectations and priorities be deliberated in a comprehensive manner for finding common & effective solutions.
In this direction, ÖZ SAĞLIK-İŞ Syndicate simultaneously submitted its membership application to the European Public Service Union Federation (EPSU) and the Public Services International (PSI).
The EPSU (www.epsu.org) represents over 8 million public service workers and conducts lobbying activities before the European Union bodies, especially the European Commission and the European Parliament.
EPSU is the European region of the global public services federation PSI and is also a member of the European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC). And, PSI is (https://publicservices.international/) is an accredited organization in the field of labour and civil society at the United Nations (UN) representing over 30 million workers working in the public service sector in 154 countries.
In this context, negotiations have kept on with both EPSU and PSI officials and EPSU and PSI member unions from Türkiye.