WORLD WORLDWIDE TURKEY - news journal UPDATE - (en) Turkey, Yeryuzu Postasi: Less Work, More Life (ca, de, fr, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

 We are sharing the declaration of the campaign, which began with the

slogan "Less Work, More Life." ---- This campaign is a call to challenge
the current order, which makes life unbearable for the working class,
including all sectors, by saying "Less work, more life" and to reclaim
lost gains. ---- Living to Work ---- The largest part of our lives is
spent working. The rest of the time, we struggle just to eat, sleep, and
make it to the next day; yet the wages we receive often fall short of
creating a decent life.

Through struggles stretching from Haymarket to the present, when the
working class achieved gains such as the 8-hour workday, the right to
retire, the right to strike, and the partial acceptance of women's
demands for "equal pay for equal work," these rights were not mere
technical regulations but rather the promise of a future where life
wasn't all about work; where it would one day be possible to truly rest
and live.

Today, these gains are being eroded piece by piece, like a quietly
reclaimed legacy. While the retirement age is constantly being pushed up
amidst the rhetoric of a never-ending economic crisis, extending actual
working hours far beyond legal limits for the sake of profit has become
normal. Despite technological advances like automation and artificial
intelligence, which enable more production in less time, the surplus
value generated by these shortened working hours is again being
appropriated by the capitalist class. While many of us work in jobs
where neither our labor nor our lives are secure, so-called "flexible"
working styles are turning us into machines "living to work."

The Remnants of the Eight-Hour Workday and Insecurity

Perhaps the most visible of these lost gains is the eight-hour workday,
once the most tangible victory of the working class but now a mere
privilege for most of us. Despite extended overtime, unpaid travel time,
and irregular shifts, effectively extending to ten or twelve hours, any
worker's pursuit of rights is met with violent intervention and
systematic intimidation.

The de facto attacks on the right to strike, which has remained a mere
matter from the outset, complete this picture. The dismissal of striking
workers, strikebreaking by employers and unions, and the violence and
death threats faced by striking workers have effectively further
curtailed the right to strike.

In today's world, where temporary, unregistered, and seasonal work is
widespread, precariousness is pervasive in every aspect of our lives.
The exploitative practices we are forced to submit to in the face of
unemployment and the disregard for job security measures in the name of
profit are just a few of the many facets of this precariousness we see
today.

With current working conditions being what they are, attempts are being
made to slowly strip us of our right to retirement, which should be a
way out. As the retirement age is pushed back further with each new
regulation, we see that it is preparing a future where retirement is
unimaginable for today's young generations.

The Disposability Regime

Capital's insatiable greed manifests itself today in the overwork of
workers under the pressure of production, revealing the complex web of
existing forms of exploitation. Because workplace deaths, such as
warehouse fires and mine collapses, persistently labeled as accidents,
and the increasing number of employer murders in recent months,
demonstrate that capitalist working styles view us as "expendable and
replaceable parts of the production line."

While the entire working class shares in this expendability, for some,
this judgment is practically predetermined. The fact that 2025 saw the
highest number of child labor deaths in the last twelve years clearly
demonstrates that working-class children, while still in school, are
being turned into cheap, uncontrolled, and futureless labor sources by
state-capital partnerships through MESEMs and similar "vocational
training" schemes. For us, this means working uninterruptedly for almost
the entirety of our lives, from childhood to death.

This same disposability repeats itself in different forms in the
experiences of migrant workers, who are confined to the most dangerous
and unregistered jobs; women workers in the domestic and service
sectors, who are pushed to the most vulnerable levels of precariousness
and face constant sexual harassment and mobbing when working in more
visible jobs; LGBTQ+ workers, who are subjected to various forms of
inequality in every sector they operate in and are made just as
vulnerable to sexual harassment and mobbing as women; and all workers,
such as trans sex workers, who are subjected to forms of violence that
amount to a disregard for their right to life.

More Life is Possible

However, a future where we truly rest and live is still possible. This
campaign is a call to challenge the current order, which imposes
workplace fatalities as "accidents," child labor as "education," and
endless overtime as "flexibility," and which makes life unbearable for
the working class, including all sectors, with the slogan "Less work,
more life" and to reclaim lost gains.

Living to Work

The majority of our lives are spent working. The rest of the time, we
simply try to eat and sleep enough to survive, to make it to the next
day; yet, the wages we receive often fall short of building a decent life.

Through struggles stretching from Haymarket to the present, when the
working class achieved gains like the 8-hour workday, the right to
retire, the right to strike, and the partial acceptance of women's
demand for "equal pay for equal work," these rights were less than mere
technical regulations and more a promise of a future where life wasn't
all about work; where it would one day be possible to truly rest and live.

Today, these gains are being eroded piece by piece, like a quietly
reclaimed legacy. While the retirement age is constantly being pushed up
amidst the rhetoric of the never-ending economic crisis, extending
actual working hours far beyond legal limits for the sake of profit has
become normal. Despite technological advances like automation and
artificial intelligence, which enable more production in less time, the
surplus value generated by these shortened working hours is again being
appropriated by the capitalist class. While many of us work jobs where
neither our labor nor our lives are secure, so-called "flexible" working
styles are turning us into machines who "live to work."

What Remains of the Eight-Hour Workday and Insecurity

Perhaps the most visible of these lost gains is the eight-hour workday,
once the most tangible victory of the working class but now a privilege
that remains on paper for most of us. Despite extended overtime, unpaid
travel time, and irregular shifts, effectively ten to twelve-hour
workdays, any worker's pursuit of rights is met with violent
interventions and systematic intimidation.

The de facto attacks on the right to strike, which has remained on paper
from the beginning, complete this picture. The dismissal of striking
workers, strikebreaking by employers and unions, and the violence and
death threats faced by striking workers have further curtailed the right
to strike in practice.

In today's world, where temporary, unregistered, and seasonal work is
widespread, insecurity is a widespread phenomenon in every aspect of our
lives. The exploitative practices we are forced to submit to in the face
of the threat of unemployment and the disregard for job security
measures for the sake of profit are just a few of the many faces of this
insecurity we see today.

With current working conditions being what they are, the right to
retirement, which should be a way out, is slowly being stripped from us.
As the retirement age is pushed back further with each new regulation,
we see that it is preparing a future where retirement is unimaginable
for today's younger generations.

The Disposability Regime

Capital's insatiable greed manifests itself today in the overwork of
workers under the pressure of production, revealing the complex web of
existing forms of exploitation. Indeed, workplace fatalities, such as
warehouse fires and mine collapses, persistently labeled as accidents,
and the recent increase in murders by employers, demonstrate that
capitalist working conditions view us as "expendable and replaceable
parts of the production line."

While the entire working class shares in this disposability, for some,
this predestination is practically predetermined. The fact that 2025 was
the year in which the highest number of child laborers died in the last
twelve years clearly demonstrated that, through MESEMs and similar
"vocational training" schemes, working-class children are being turned
into cheap, unsupervised, and futureless labor sources in a
state-capital partnership while still in school. For us, this means
working uninterruptedly for almost our entire lives, from childhood to
death.

This same expendability repeats itself in different forms in the
experiences of migrant workers, who are confined to the most dangerous
and unregistered jobs; women workers in the domestic and service
sectors, who are pushed into the most vulnerable circle of
precariousness and face constant sexual harassment and bullying when
they work in more visible jobs; LGBTQ+ workers, who are subjected to
various forms of inequality in every sector they operate and are made
just as vulnerable to sexual harassment and bullying as women; and all
workers, such as trans sex workers, who are subjected to forms of
violence that amount to a disregard for their right to life.

More Life is Possible

However, a future where we are truly listened to and lived is still
possible. This campaign is a call to challenge the current order-which
imposes workplace fatalities as "accidents," child labor as "education,"
and endless overtime as "flexibility"-and makes life unbearable for the
working class, including all sectors, by saying "Less work, more life"
and to reclaim lost gains.

None of what is being taken from us today was handed to us on a silver
platter in the past; on the contrary, each was won through years of
consistent struggle. Through militant, informal, and practical struggles
organized from the grassroots by the working class in every workplace,
we can reclaim all our lost gains.

We can make less work and more life possible.

Source: Less Work, More Life

https://www.yeryuzupostasi.org/2025/12/06/daha-az-is-daha-cok-yasam/
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