Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size Notes S. Mitter & A. Luijken, Computer-aided manufacturing and women's employment: The clothing industry in four EC countries (London and New York: Springer-Verlag, 1992); L. Beneria & M. Roldan, The Crossroads of Class and Gender: Industrial Homework, Subcontracting & Household Dynamics in Mexico City (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1987). A.M. Singh & A. Kelles-Vitanen, (eds.) Invisible Hands: Women in Home-based Production (London: Sage, 1987). G. Evcimen, M. Kaytaz & E.M. Cinar, ‘Subcontracting, Growth and Capital Accumulation in Small Scale Firms in the Textile Industry in Turkey’, The Journal of Development Studies, Vol.28, No.1 (1991), pp.130–49. K. Lordoglu, Eve İş Verme Sistemi İçinde Kadın İşgücü Üzerine Bir Alan Araştırması (İstanbul: Friedrich Ebert Vakfı, Araştırma Sonuçları, 1990); J. Peck, ‘Labor and Agglomeration: Control and Flexibility in Local Labor Markets’, Economic Geography, Vol.68, No.4 (1992), pp.325–47; B. Kümbetoğlu, ‘Kadın-Çalışma ve Evde Üretim’, in Türkiye'de ve Dünyada Güncel Sosyolojik Gelişmeler (Ankara: Sosyoloji Derneği, 1992); R. Balakrishnan, (ed.) The Hidden Assembly Line: Gender Dynamics of Subcontracted Work in a Global Economy (Bloomfield, CT: Kumarian Press, 2002) W. Chapkis & C. Enloe, (eds.) Of Common Cloth: Women in the Global Textile Industry (Amsterdam: Transnational Institute; Washington: Institute for Policy Studies, 1983); U. Cho & H. Koo, ‘Economic Development and Women's Work in a Newly Industrializing Country: The Case of Korea’, Development and Change, Vol.14 (1983); S. Joekes, Industrialisation, Trade and Female Employment: Experiences of the 1970s and After, Dominican Republic: International Research and Training Institute for the Advancement of Women (United Nations, 1986). L. Benería Lourdes &. R. Martha, The Crossroads of Class and Gender: Industrial Homework, Subcontracting, and Household Dynamics in Mexico City (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1987); Y. Ecevit, ‘Shop Floor Control: The Ideological Construction of Turkish Women Factory Workers’, in N. Redclift & M.T. Sinclair (eds.) Working Women, International Perspectives on Labour and Gender Ideology (London: Routledge, 1991); P. Pessar, ‘Sweatshop Workers and Domestic Ideologies: Dominican Women in New York's Apparel Industry’, International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Vol.18, No.1 (1994), pp.27–142. A. Eraydın & A. Erendil, ‘The Role of Female Labour in Industrial Restructuring: New Production Process and Labour Market Relations in the Istanbul Clothing Industry’, Gender, Place and Culture, Vol.6, No.3 (1999). Approximately 69 women workers were interviewed in two textile firms. All worked in the main production departments. The sample was a stratified one in which women workers were chosen in each plant to provide a spread of ages and jobs (with about two-thirds in assembly work). Information was obtained on the age structure of blue-collar workers from HRM managers. This was then used as a sampling frame to request workers for interview in such a way as to provide a representative spread of ages and positions. Workers with less than six months service were excluded on the grounds that they were unlikely to be well informed on some of the matters investigated. Interviews with women workers lasted around an hour and in some cases more. A series of interviews were also conducted with specialist and senior managers in each company and with trade union officials, with further discussions being held with workers of an informal kind. Structured, semi-structured and open-ended questions were included. During the fieldwork, workers and managers were observed inside the workplace. Visits were made to the neighbourhoods where most of the women workers lived and additional in-depth-interviews with workers were conducted, which lasted around two to three hours outside the factory. In this way, workers' life stories were collected as well as further comments from them on various aspects of work. Interviews were conducted during 2000–2001. One of the textile firms was unionized by left wing Tekstil-Is. In the sample the other textile firm was not unionized. The first textile firm (BursaText1) is largely owned by a UK multinational textile company (the UK company owns 76 per cent of the shares and 24 per cent is owned by 80 partners in Turkey). Initially set up in Istanbul in 1952, it moved out to Bursa in 1968. This textile plant employs just under 1,000 people of which two-thirds are female. Almost half of the labour force are Turkish–Bulgarian immigrants. BursaText1 is one of the leading firms in the production of yarn, zippers and embroidery in Turkey and the company has concentrated on the internal market which makes up 80 per cent of their total sales. At BursaText1 the zipper unit represents about a third of the factory and mainly consists of machining work. a. BursaText1 plans to export more of its products to the Group's companies around the world. At present its exports are worth circa US$10 million per year. The company usually gets its raw materials from Egypt, where the Group has extensive cotton fields with high quality yields. The plant's technology is more than usually mixed, highly automated in spinning and highly labour intensive in the zip and finishing unit. At BursaText1, cotton is the main raw material and is mainly imported through the parent company from its own cotton fields. Overall only 30 per cent of all supplies come from Turkey and 70 per cent from outside with major decisions about suppliers being taken by the parent company which has world-wide interests. b. The other textile firm (BursaText2) is owned by one of Turkey's leading textile industrialists. It was set up in Bursa in 1972 and started to produce towels and bathrobes with two semi automatic looms and five employees. The company now employs around 1,500 people of which just over half were female in 2002. It is the largest producer in this sector in Turkey with exports of US$20 million and a turnover of US$100 million and it has taken its place among the 10 largest companies in the sector in the world. Over two thirds of its products are exported mainly to the UK and the USA. The level of technology is relatively higher than that generally found in the textile industry in Turkey. On average 10–20 million US$ have been invested in new technology in recent years but the production process is still labour intensive, especially in the spinning and confection unit. The relatively simple products are typically produced in big batches and whereas computerized embroidery machines are used to produce different designs, the plant can be neither considered hi-tech nor an example of the application of modern management method. An important part of the labour force originally stems from the owners' hometown and in this and other respects, the plant approximates more closely than any of the others to a traditional Turkish plant. ILO, Facts on Women at Work, (2003), www.ilo.org/public/german/region/ eurpro/bonn/download/women.pdf Y. Engin, (2000) Haksiz Rekabet ve Sosyal Politikalara Etkisi Acisindan Kayitdisi Ekonomi, Mercek Dergisi, Temmuz, Sayi.19. On the statistical aspect of the unregistered economy in Turkey also see http://www.tekstilisveren.org.tr/dergi/temmuz/economi2.html E.M. Cinar, G. Evcimen & M. Kaytaz, ‘The Present Day Status of Small-Scale Industries (Sanatkar) in Bursa, Turkey’, International Journal of Middle Eastern Studies, Vol.20 (1988), pp.287–301. See note 2, Ecevit (1991), p.59. T. Erman, ‘The impact of migration on Turkish rural women: Four emerging patterns’, Gender and Society, Vol.2, No. 12 (1998), pp.146–67. See note 2, Ecevit (1991), p.60. At BursaText1, there is a history of trade unionism. Prior to the 1980 coup the plant was unionised by Textil Is, an affiliate of DISK. As such, Textil Is was banned and unable to operate until 1991. In the meantime, another union, Öziplik Is, which belonged to the Islamic federation, Hak Is, which was reinstated in 1983, stepped in to organise the plant. This situation came to an end in 1992 when Öziplik Is made an agreement with the employers that angered workers in the plant. Some workers plant recall that the agreement was so far from what they expected the union to deliver that union officials, not wanting to inform them directly, posted details of the agreement on the union notice board. Workers decided to leave Öziplik Is and rejoin Textil Is, the DISK affiliate. Guided by some of the older workers, who had previously been DISK members, they were successful in this. In 1994, the union insisted on improvements to certain social rights and pay related issues. The employers opposed the union's proposals and the union subsequently called a strike. The strike was successful after 45 days but caused difficulty for BursaText1 management, losing them an important export order. One manager in particular has been very hostile to the union ever since. Another strike took place in 1998 over overtime pay during weekends. a. The story of trade unionism at BursaText2 is an altogether simpler one to recount. BursaText2 was unionised by the Turk Is affiliate Teksif Is in 1985, following several earlier attempts. Even then the owner of the plant did not join the employer's union TÜTSIS [Türkiye Tekstil Sanayii Isverenleri Sendikasi] and he bargained independently with the union until 1992. The union's policy was to wait until agreement had been reached with the employers' organisation in the national bargaining round between the employers and the union and then to insist on the same terms. This policy was successfully pursued in two bargaining rounds in the late 1980s. But in 1992, when TÜTSIS and the union reached agreement at national level, the plant owner informed the union that he could not follow suit. The union continued to demand the conditions agreed at the national level and the owner reject it all. Having refused to deal any further with the union, the employer then embarked on a series of other measures. He sacked union activists. He not only encouraged workers to leave the union, he actually offered to pay the fee that workers incur when they visit the Notary Public in order to de-register their union membership. He also took care to keep out any potential troublemakers when hiring new workers, often recruiting from his home region. Since then there has been no union at BursaText2. Erman (1998), p.152.