Focus: Trade Union Rights in Turkey: a gloomy picture

Abstract

Trade union rights have always been at the very bottom of the rights and freedoms agenda in Turkey – not just for the last years but during the entire history of the republic. In the post-2002 period of single party rule by the Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi (AKP, English: Justice and Development Party), trade union rights were seen to suffer a considerable meltdown. Currently trade union density in Turkey is much lower than in the decade following the military coup of September 12th, 1980. Due to higher thresholds for entering into collective bargaining system, a very low number of workers benefit from collective agreements or are able to engage in collective action, including strikes. Union members are insufficiently protected from dismissal on the grounds of their trade union activities. Moreover the right to strike has been abolished de facto. Trade union legislation undermines trade union rights Turkey’s industrial relations legislation as a whole has not encouraged trade unionism – indeed, to some degree it has been hostile to the unions. There were no remarkable changes in trade union legislation during the AKP rule and the legislation of the coup d’état of 1980 went untouched. In 2010, some amendments were made to the provisions of the Constitution related to trade union rights. However, these changes, contrary to some claims, are not capable of creating meaningful expansion of trade union rights. The changes cannot satisfy the criticisms of the European Court of Human Rights, along with the ILO’s and the EU’s demands. Turkey’s new Law on Trade Unions and Collective Agreements (No. 6356) was enacted in December 2012. Even though the new law introduces some limited improvements especially as far as the founding of unions, as concerns the internal functioning of unions and union membership (within the context of freedom of association), it maintains, and in some areas even increases limitations, especially those concerning the rights to collective agreements and to strike. The Act did amend the double threshold system – 10 percent all of workers in a particular industry and more than 50 percent at in individual firms/workplace must join a union for it to be recognised – that had inhibited unionisation for 30 years. At first, the industry threshold was reduced to 3 percent for independent unions and 1 percent for unions affiliated with confederations under the umbrella of the Economic and Social Council (ESC). In 2015 the Constitutional Court decreed that all unions shall be subject to the 1 percent industry threshold. The law continues to maintain the workplace threshold of more than 50 percent where a company is composed of a single workplace, while lowering the threshold to 40 percent for enterprises composed of multiple workplaces, for example, banks. These high workplace and enterprise thresholds hamper union organisation, the effective representation of workers and the exercise of their right to bargain collectively. There are several unions and confederations for civil servants in Turkey but these have been left out of the analysis here for several reasons. They are regulated differently from the workers’ unions and differ markedly from them in terms of rights. It is still forbidden for some public officials to be unionised, and no civil servants have rights to genuinely free collective bargaining. They must submit to compulsory arbitration and are forbidden to strike. Moreover, while workers (in both the private and the public sector) work under individual employment contract, civil servants are subject to administrative law. Civil servants’ unions in Turkey work as associations rather than trade unions. The structure of trade unionism in Turkey Industry based unionism or the principle of ‘industrial unionism’ has been adopted in Turkey. Workplace and profession-based unions, along with regional unions and federations were not allowed. Instead, Turkey adopted a uniform, centralised industrial unionism by force of law. The new trade union law No. 6356 also limits the formation of unions to industry level and prohibits the formation of workplace, enterprise or occupation-based unions. Nor does it allow union federations, city- or region-based unions, or unions representing retired people, farmers or the unemployed. The trade unions in Turkey are organised mainly under three confederations or umbrella organisations. The leading one is the...