Mohammed Zaghnoun, a refugee from Aleppo, arrived in Turkey two years ago and considers himself relatively fortunate. He earns 1,500 Turkish liras ($436) a month, 200 liras ($58) above the minimum wage, in a furniture factory in Ankara. Many of the 3 million Syrians in Turkey don’t even have a job.

But Zaghnoun works 12 hours a day, five and a half days a week — one-and-a-half times as long as the legal working week. The Turk working next to him, doing the same job, earns 47% more and receives health insurance. In short, Zaghnoun is horrendously exploited.

He is only one of tens of thousands of refugee workers who drove the Turkish Confederation of Employer Associations (TISK) to urge the government to give Syrians the right to work. The TISK said the lack of regulations meant that companies using Syrians as cheap labor have an unfair advantage over other businesses.

In January, the Turkish government passed a regulation allowing Syrians to obtain work permits, but under a quota to prevent Syrians from displacing Turks. Only 10% of a company's staff can be Syrian.