Turkish Labour And The Turkish Political Challenge

The fourth confederation is the Confederation of Public Workers' Unions. (Kamu Emekà §ileri SendikalarÄ ± Konfederasyonu -- KESK), founded in 1995.It represents mainly public sector workers and has played an activist role in trying to restore the rights of trade unions in collective bargaining. KESK is affiliated with the International Trade Union Confederation, and the European Trade Union Confederation.

The fundamental problem for Turkish unions is the stranglehold of legislation which prohibits the freedoms of unions in the workplace. Key to those freedoms are the impediments of the levels of representation rules. Some 1,040,000 workers are registered in unions. But only about 580,000 of them are entitled to collective labour contracts. The others are denied this right because their unions remain below [legal membership] thresholds. So, many workers with trade union memberships lack the benefit of collective contracts.

Prior to 1980, Turkey's workers were an important civic power in the country. Trade unions were forces to be reckoned with, organizing highly effective rallies, strikes and resistance movements. Following the 1980 military coup, legal amendments were introduced to curb trade unions, including certain benchmarks for the right to negotiate collective contracts. Three thresholds are currently in place. The unions face the "work sector" threshold; that is a trade union has to recruit at least 1% of all the workers in one of eighteen designated sectors before it has the right of representation. Then comes the "workplace" threshold, which requires unions to recruit at least 51% of the workers in any given workplace. Finally, there is the "chain business" threshold, which bars trade unions from collective bargaining unless they recruit at least 40% of workers in nationwide chains such as supermarkets.

Another major impediment for the labour movement comes from the subcontracting system, which has been heavily promoted in recent years. Even state institutions are increasingly outsourcing to subcontractors, who pay lower wages to non-unionized workers. The practice has expanded so much that even parliament, supposed to lead efforts to protect labour rights, has outsourced many of its own needs, such as cleaning and catering. About 600,000 workers are employed today in the subcontracting system. [vii]

In many ways this narrowing of the horizons of the trades unions has had a powerful effect on Turkish industry. The absence of a trade union presence in the workplaces has led to a disregard by the employer of maintaining a healthy and safe workplace. A good example is the Soma Mine Disaster of 2014.

On May 13, 2014 an explosion occurred in a coal mine in Soma, a small town in western Turkey. The ensuing fire trapped hundreds of miners underground, eventually causing the death of 301 of them, while injuring 162 others. Almost every rule of mine safety was ignored by the management of the mine. While the miners were pressured to maximize production and while overseers structurally neglected health and safety standards the head of Soma Holding boasted in a 2012 interview that his company had brought down the costs of coal from $130 to $24 per ton. The reduction in production costs was paralleled by a similar reduction in safe working conditions. According to survivors' accounts included in a HumanRightsWatch report "state authorities charged with oversight and inspection were fully aware of the situation but ignored it." The Soma management was brought to trial in 2015 but the government safety inspectors were excluded from the trial.

While in office the AKP has restricted worker's rights to organize and strike, intensified neoliberal employment policies, encouraged the practice of subcontracting and part-time work agreements and allowed for the structural violation of worker rights.

Workers in Turkey were once again reminded of their precarious position when at the end of January, 2015 15,000 metal workers planned to go on strike. After failing to reach an agreement with the employer's union about better wages and the length of collective bargaining periods the workers announced that in 22 factories in ten different cities across the country they would lay down their tools and walk off the job.

However, the next day the strike was "suspended" when the government issued a Cabinet Decree deeming it a "threat to national security". The suspension of the strike is in fact a strike ban in action. In order to prevent the workers from walking off the job, the government brought back a controversial law -- approved in the aftermath of the 1980 military coup -- which was designed to curtail the powers of the influential labour unions at the time.

According to the Turkish Law on Trade Unions and Collective Labour Agreements, coded 6356, "A lawful strike that has been called or commenced may be suspended by the Council of Ministers for 60 days with a decree if it is prejudicial to public health or national security". As the Turkish Cabinet's Decree was published on 30 January in the Official Gazette, the 60-day period was over as of 31 March. This was only the first hurdle.

The legal and legitimate strike launched by IndustriALL affiliate Birlesik Metal-Is then had to go to the High Arbitration Board for a compulsory process because the Turkish legislation does not allow for the union to conduct its strike after the postponement period. The Government is deliberately delaying the Board so no decision or resolution is possible. [viii]

Another obstacle Turkish workers face is the widespread existence of so-called "yellow unions" -- unions under the direct influence of employers. These yellow unions often undermine the bargaining power of independent unions by signing weak collective agreements that fall short of meeting worker demands and undermine the more stringent demands of the independent unions. The agreement between the metal worker unions Turk Metal and Celik-IÃ...Ÿ and the employers' union MESS -- while BirleÃ...Ÿik Metal-IÃ...Ÿ failed to reach an agreement and called for a strike -- is a case in point which illustrates how yellow unions agree to terms that independent unions do not support.

Turkish labour sees no hope of any improvement under the AKP dominance of the political system However, the inability of the AKP to retain its majority in the last election and its seeming inability to find a willing partner for a coalition government means it may be vulnerable in the November 1 election. After the bombing of the peaceful demonstrators in Ankara the secular and progressive Turkish labour movement has put its support behind AKP's rivals, the HDP.

The left-wing HDP-formerly largely a Kurdish-based party-shattered the 10 percent ceiling to serve in the Parliament, taking 13.1 percent of the vote and electing 79 representatives. The HDP's breakthrough came about because the Party allied itself with other left and progressive parties in 2012-much as Syriza did in Greece-and campaigned on an openly left program. Led by the dynamic Selahattin Demirtas, its candidates included many women, as well as gays and lesbians. There is a natural affinity of the HDP with the Turkish labour movement and a high likelihood of the coalescence of the two in future electoral initiatives. Perhaps Turkey can benefit from the work of Syriza in Greece and move to a broader coalition of the centre-left to sweep the AKP Islamists from power.

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