Alpkan Birelma’s research while affiliated with Özyeğin University and other places

This article explores a successful unionisation struggle among garment workers in Istanbul. In the last four decades, Turkey has become a global showcase of authoritarian anti-labour neoliberalism and one of the world’s top garment and textile exporters. The latter has come at the cost of worker exploitation and precarity. Such conditions led a group of knitting workers to unionise at the beginning of the 2010s. After five years of struggle, they signed a collective bargaining agreement covering nearly 400 workers. This very rare success rested on two key factors: the efforts of a militant minority and transnational labour solidarity.

Türkiye’de otoriter neoliberalizmin grevler üzerindeki etkileri 1990’ların ikinci yarısında belirginleşmiş, yasal grevlere katılan grevci işçi sayısı bu dönemde azalmıştır. 2010’larda ise hükümetin otomatikleşen ertelemeleri sebebiyle yasal grev yapmak neredeyse imkansızlaşmıştır. Ülkede otoriterleşmenin arttığı bu dönemde işçi sınıfının protesto eylemleri de sönümlenip önemsizleşmiş midir? Yoksa başka biçimlerde sürmekte midir? Bu araştırma işçi sınıfının 2010’ların ikinci yarısında işverenlerine ve devlete yönelik protesto eylemlerini inceleyerek bu sorulara yanıt aramaktadır. Protesto olayı analizi yöntemiyle yapılan özgün araştırmada 2015-19 yıllarında basına yansıyan 3 bin 95 eylem vakası tespit edilmiştir. Bu makalede asıl olarak işyeri temelli eylemler, yani bir işyerindeki işçilerin işyerindeki sorunlarıyla alakalı olarak işverenlerini hedef alan eylemler incelenip analiz edilmiştir. Vakaların yaklaşık beşte birine devletin müdahale ettiği, yaklaşık 170 bin işçinin grevinin hükümetçe ertelendiği 2015-19 yıllarında Türkiye işçi sınıfının, tüm engellere rağmen hakkını aramak için küçümsenemeyecek bir protesto performansı göstermiş olduğu ortaya konulmuştur.

What happens to the labour movement when the unions are weak? We argued that because of the aggressive policies of the capitalist class for forty years in the neoliberal era, the economic and political power of the working class has decreased almost all over the world. However, it didn’t disappear.

This article examines working-class entrepreneurialism in Turkey from a comparative perspective. Based on ethnographic fieldwork conducted in a working-class neighborhood of İstanbul, the article focuses on the perceptions, aspirations, and entrepreneurial attempts of manual workers employed in formal jobs. It aims to contribute to the understudied literature on working-class entrepreneurialism, which is often overlooked or underestimated by the critical research on labor and the working class. First, the article demonstrates that the level of entrepreneurialism among manual workers is rather high. Alongside revealing the popularity of aspirations for self-employment and the working-class roots of many self-employed individuals, I present an ethnographic account of five workers’ transition from wage work to self-employment. Second, the article finds that a colloquial phrase, “ el işi ” or “a stranger’s business,” is widely used to refer to wage work. I argue that this phrase perfectly manifests the popular resentment felt toward wage labor in a social milieu where self-employment seems accessible. Finally, by drawing on a review of a scattered set of studies, I claim that entrepreneurialism among working-class men seems to be quite common, especially in peripheral countries.

The article concerns the recent transformation and ensuing successes of a Turkish trade union of road transport workers called Tüm Taşıma İşçileri Sendikası (TÜMTİS). In the mid-2000s, TÜMTİS was mainly organised in small-sized freight companies having around 1 500 members with collective contracts. The strategic choice of a new leadership to concentrate on a large-scale, international firm with the support of Global Unions was the turning point. The ensuing United Parcel Service campaign ended with a collective agreement for nearly 2 700 new members in 2011. The union won its second large-scale organising victory at DHL in 2014. At the time of writing, a third large-scale firm is on the verge of recognition. To scrutinise this case, I use the power resources approach in a critical way. To the approach, I add an examination of the subjectivities of union leaders by drawing on the debates about different types of unionisms, importance of the ideology and motivations. I argue that the agency behind this revitalisation can be only explained by taking both its objectivities and subjectivities into account. While the class unionism embraced by TÜMTİS leaders explains the subjective side of the story, associational power from below and its meeting with international solidarity play the key role on the objective side.

Social dialogue is a core value and a key objective of the International Labour Organization (ILO). The Ministry of Family, Labour and Social Services also recognizes the value and importance of social dialogue in both policy making and implementation in Turkey. Social dialogue has a proven track record in producing sustainable solutions, including in times of crisis and recovery from crisis. Recognizing the value of social dialogue, the International Labour Organization for Turkey provided technical support to the Ministry of Family, Labour and Social Services to implement a project entitled ‘Improving Social Dialogue in Working Life’ within the framework of EU Instrument of Pre-accession Funds. The overall objective of this project is to improve social dialogue at all levels. The overall objective of this project is to promote social dialogue at all levels in Turkey.

Bu çalışma ile Türkiye’de “Çalışma Hayatında Sosyal Diyaloğun Geliştirilmesi Projesi” kapsamında 2018 yılında gerçekleştirilmiş olan araştırmanın sonuçları sunulmaktadır. Araştırmanın amacı, kamuoyunun, çalışan kesimin ve çalışma hayatındaki sosyal tarafların sosyal diyalog ve sendikalaşma hakkındaki bilgi ve algılarının ölçülmesi, sosyal diyaloğun ve örgütlenmenin nasıl geliştirilebileceğine ilişkin düşüncelerinin ortaya çıkarılması ve bu bilgiler ışığında sosyal diyaloğun geliştirilmesine yönelik politika önerilerinin tasarlanmasıdır. Bu amaç için konuyla ilgili literatürden yola çıkarak ülke genelinde yaklaşık 2.000 kişilik yüz yüze anket icra edilmiş ve sosyal taraflarla derinlemesine görüşmeler gerçekleştirilmiştir.