Focus: A new hope for young workers in Turkey

Abstract

INTERNATIONAL union rights Page 3 Volume 20 Issue 3 2013 FOCUS ❐ YOUNG WORKERS AND TRADE UNION RIGHTS A new hope for young workers in Turkey This summer Turkey witnessed one of the largest and most widespread protest movements of its recent history, but union involvement was limited, these organisations having been structurally disempowered over the past three decades FILIZ KAHRAMAN is a PhD Candidate in the Political Science Department at the University of Washington. men (50.8 percent). What is perhaps more alarming is that the rate of young people (ages 20-24) neither in school nor in employment is 43.7 percent , which is by far the highest among all OECD countries (OECD 2013). A considerable portion of this ‘inactive’ youth is indeed comprised of young women doing paid unpaid work, either in the home or in family-run businesses, suggesting that a large segment of young labourers remain invisible to both official statistics and trade unions. Despite the difficulties of tracking work in the informal economy, recent studies in Turkey have shown that many women who do paid domestic work or work for the textile industry from home go unreported since work from home is not considered employment. The low participation of young women in the labour force, well below the OECD average of 48.2 (OECD 2010), can also be explained by rampant workplace discrimination, a lack of legal reforms encouraging female labour participation, violence against women, and the patriarchal division of labour in society. Approximately half of the young labour force stems from the large informal economy, which, combined with legally sanctioned subcontracting to firms evading worker protection, constitutes some of the most alarming issues in Turkey. The most fundamental labour rights violations occur due to the precarious working conditions in subcontracted and informal work: low wages, unpaid overtime work, work without benefits or social security, workplace discrimination and perhaps most importantly, lack of workplace safety. The tragic death last July of Ugur Nazir, a 25-year-old automobile worker is indicative of the dire economic conditions of the youth. Nazir had been working without receiving his wage for 10 months before committing suicide when his struggle for justice with his fellow workers yielded no results. Every year 1200 to 1500 people die due to unregulated and unsecure working conditions. The rate of fatal occupational injuries, or occupational killings as they are called in Turkey, is highest among all European countries (Laborsta). In 2012, unskilled workers comprised the biggest occupational group among youth by 20 percent and most of these young workers are employed in small enterprises where most violations occur. The severity of labour conditions in Turkey become more apparent when compared with other middle income countries. Turkey has one of the lowest labour costs among middle income countries while the working hours are among the highest, placing it well beyond the average working hours in countries such as Mexico and Korea (Laborsta). In fact, these poor labour conditions have become a point of pride for the Turkish state to attract foreign investment. On Turkey’s official website of Investment Support and Promotion T his summer Turkey witnessed one of the largest and most widespread protest movements of its recent history. Starting as a rather small right-to-the-city movement in Gezi Park at the heart of Taksim Square of Istanbul, it soon turned into a massive movement bringing people marginalised or oppressed by the Justice and Development Party (‘AKP’) policies in the past decade. Young people, specifically the self-proclaimed ‘90s generation constituted the driving force behind the movement. Although the government ’s economic policies and labour rights issues were central rallying points, trade unions hardly took a leading position in the protests. Indeed, a large part of the movement’s success can be attributed to its spontaneity and leaderless structure, which allowed for the participation of people subscribing to different ideologies, beliefs and political parties. A wide range of civil society organisations, professional associations, and advocacy groups provided a critical but limited backing to the movement without overtly trying to co-opt it politically. Given the massive scale of the movement countrywide, the participation of labour unions was curiously weak, even behind...