The chairperson of Turkish Union of Commerce, Cooperative, Education, Office and Fine Arts Workers (Tez-Koop-İş), which is organized in shopping malls, Haydar Özdemiroğlu made statements on the increasing COVID-19 cases after the decision of reopening for Turkey's opposition newspaper Cumhuriyet daily the previous day.
Saying that they have received recent news of COVID-19 cases from shopping malls and department stores in Turkey’s İstanbul, Ankara, Kayseri, Kocaeli, Bursa, Eskişehir, Mardin, Diyarbakır and Bodrum, Özdemiroğlu emphasized the urgency of taking measures against the coronavirus pandemic.
Özdemiroğlu noted that the workers are forced to job rotation in many stores, and recent number of COVID-19 cases are higher than the number when the decision of closing down the shopping malls was taken.
“With the closing down of shopping malls, all workers must be provided with paid leave, their all rights must be paid in full without any cutting in economic and social rights, and COVID-19 must be defined as an occupational disease,” he said.
