May Day

PHOTO by Emrah Gurel / Hurriyet Daily News

May Day celebrations took place in relative peace yesterday, the only disturbance coming when unhappy workers through stones and other objects at Turk-Is leader Mustafa Kumlu. From Hurriyet Daily News: More than 200,000 people gathered in Istanbul's Taksim Square for Saturday's May Day celebrations, which by midday were marred only by a protest of a union chief.

Police deployed more than 22,000 officers for the rally, the first in Taksim Square since 1978.

A group of workers protested the head of the Confederation of Turkish Labor Unions, or Türk İş, as he took the stage to make a speech on Saturday afternoon.

Mustafa Kumlu was forced to leave the stage and seek shelter in the Atatürk Culture Center, or AKM, after workers from various organizations — Tekel, the former state alcohol and tobacco monopoly; İSKİ, the water and sewage directorate; and a fire brigade — began a protest. Some of the protesters threw stones, breaking some of the culture center's windows, Anatolia news agency reported.

After the protest, the stage remained empty and the crowd began to disperse. The speeches restarted later.

Kumlu aside, most unions pointed to the lack of unrest and largely peaceful demonstrations as evidence that May Day celebrations in Taksim Square should not have been restricted in past years. Istanbul Governor Muammer Guler allowed the celebrations to take place this year for the first time since 1978. In 1977, at least 34 people died in the square when rightist gunmen fired indiscriminately into the May Day crowd. Past May Day celebrations have been marred with violence. Following massive criticisms against the government following
a large crackdown celebrations/demonstrations in 2008, President Gul declared May Day a national holiday the following year.

May Day

Istanbul Governor Muammer Guler announced on NTV on Monday that his administration would allow a number of workers to take to Taksim Square during this year's May Day celebrations. Though the government made May Day, celebrated worldwide as International Workers' Day, an official holiday, the government and police have been criticized in recent years for excessive handling of leftist demonstrations. The police's handling of May Day demonstrations in 2008 have been particularly scrutinized. A point of contention to Guler's announcement comes in response to his stated intention to attempt to limit the number of workers who can take to the square. The Confederation of Revolutionary Trade Unions (DISK) and other unions have said that the number of workers allowed to take to the square should not be limited or neotiated, and that efforts to do so will only increase tensions.

Standing in the Way of Economic Growth?

Tekel workers clash with police in Ankara on Thursday, April 1. AA Photo from Hurriyet Daily News

Tekel workers won an important victory at the Council of State at the end of last month when the Administrative Division of the Council of State's General Commission ruled that the government's relegation of their employment status to 4-C temporary worker status exceeded its powers and violated the rights of the former tobacco-industry workers. The Council applied to the Constitutional Court to annul the legal validity of the status.

A few days later, Tekel workers again took to the streets to stage a one-day demonstration in Ankara on April 1. However, police would not allow them to re-occupy their previous position in front of the Confederation of Turkish Labor Unions, or Türk-İş, headquarters in Ankara’s Kızılay district and clashes followed as demonstrators were pushed into other sectors of the city. Prime Minister Erdogan had strong words for the protestors: "Who are they? They are overshadowing the current positive developments in the country. The growth rate in the last quarter is 6 percent. We should focus on this. We can’t allow illegal actions."

For more on the Tekel stand off, see March 7 and Feb. 9 posts.

Contesting "Statism": More of a Thatcher Than a Khomeini?

AA Photo from Hurriyet Daily News

The BBC's Jonathan Head takes a look at Tekel workers and their continued efforts to resist receiving temporary working status and a reduction of their pay and benefits. (For background, see March 7 post.) From the story:

From its shiny new headquarters that towers over the squat, 1930s buildings of Ankara, the AK Party is projecting a very different vision of Turkey than the one envisioned by the country's founding father, Ataturk.

Often described as Islamist because of the conservative religious habits of its leaders, the party is actually driven at least as much by business as by faith.

Prime Minister Erdogan is more of a Margaret Thatcher than an Ayatollah Khomeini.

"The AKP is in favour of the market, against state enterprises - they have a prejudice that everything the market does is proper and just and successful", says Professor Burhan Sanatalar, an economist at Istanbul's Bilgi University.

"The revenue side is also very important to them", he says.

"From the 1980s to 2008 privatization generated around $36bn, and 70% of that has been received during the AKP's period in government."

The AKP's approach has helped generate impressive economic growth over the past decade, and spawned hundreds of successful new private businesses.


Tekel workers say they will no longer vote for the AKP
But in a country where the state has dominated so much of life since the founding of the Turkish republic 87 years ago, it has also come as a shock to many Turks.

Back in 1931 Ataturk announced his "Six Arrows" - the six principles that he believed should underpin the character of the nation.

One was "statism", a belief that the state should play a leading role in Turkey's economic development.

Even as late as the mid-1990s, more than half a million people were employed by state enterprises, about 20% of the industrial workforce.

See also my Feb. 9 post.

Tekel, Neoliberalism, and the AKP

AA Photo from Hurriyet Daily News

Pictures of class warfare continue to flash across Turkish television screens as workers for the formerly state-owned tobacco monopoly Tekel carry on their protest against the state's closure of 12 factories and plans for their re-assignment as temporary workers (4C employment status). Under the government's plans, laid off Tekel workers would be redeployed into lower-paying temporary personnel positions in other private firms for a period of ten months. Under the plans, Tekel workers would receive no severance and be faced with unemployment following the ten months. Further, they would lose their rights to strike and collectively bargain since they would no longer be working as public workers under the Labor Law.

Protests have been marked by violent street clashes with police, a seige of AKP party headquarters, and now, a hunger strike that has left at least nine protestors hospitalized. After AKP efforts to resolve the conflict by meeting with labor union representatives failed, the Confederation of Turkish Labor Unions (Turk-Is), the main umbrella labor union here, executed a general strike in which thousands of workers across Turkey did not report to work in order to show solidarity for Tekel workers. The Labor Confederation (Hak-Is), the Confederation of Revolutionary Workers’ Unions (DISK), the Confederation of Public Sector Trade Unions (KESK), and the Turkish Public Workers’ Labor Union (Kamu-Sen) all participated in the strike. In a February 1 meeting with union leaders, the government had offered the workers an additional month of work, as well as severance pay and 22 days paid leave.

Turk-Is, along with the other five unions, are now calling for another meeting with Prime Minister Erdogan and Parliamnet Speaker Mehmet Ali Sahin. The unions are planning to meet Friday to decide their next move.

While labor unions conflicts are not unusual in Turkey, the intensity of the Tekel workers determination have garnered the sympathies of some Turks at a time when the AKP is already facing pressure on its most recent Kurdish initiative. It is possible that the strikes could have a significant impact on drawing attention to and heightening dissent of the AKP's neoliberal economic policies. Left-leaning intellectuals have been particularly keen to highlight what they see as inconsistencies between AKP's reputed welfare orientation and its neoliberal tendencies. (For an example, see Milliyet columnist Riza Turmen's recent column.)

Turkey has historically had a very large state sector, of which Tekel is a legacy. The question of what to do with laid off workers cast out of their jobs after sometimes decades of employment is particularly difficult, and indubitably irksome to the AKP, which has shown itself eager to privatize public sector firms, boost foreign direct investment, and solidify Turkey's re-orientation as a liberal market economy based on free trade principles and a diminished public sector. While the AKP has promoted welfare policies, its emphasis has been on strengthening Turkey's largely traditional welfare regime, moving responsibilities for caring for the least vulnerable members of Turkish society out of the state's hands and into those of voluntary and philanthropic organizations, with which the Islamic-oriented party has plenty of connections.


UPDATE I (2/21) -- An estimated 20,000 people assembled in Ankara on Sat., Feb. 22, to march in support of Tekel workers. AFP reports that Prime Minister Erdogan has "given the workers until the end of the month to either accept the new status or face unemployment, threatening to send police to demolish their make-shift tent city in the heart of Ankara."

UPDATE II (2/24) -- Tekel workers are planning another demonstration for tomorrow and a sit-in for Saturday following resignation of their principal union leader following a meeting on Monday between Turk Is, DISK, KESK, and Kamu-Sen, folloing which the four unions said they would end resistance if Tekel workers decide to do so. The four unions are characterizing the demonstrations as successful, though they have said they will support Tekel workers in their final decision. This organizational rift occurs as the end-of-the-month deadline approaches.

TEKEL Protests Continue

Workers of TEKEL, the former government alcohol/tobacco monopoly, have continued to organize protests in Ankara and Istanbul with the cooperation of the Turkish Worker Syndicates Confederation (Turk-Is). The workers are protesting changes to their employment status as a result of TEKEL's privitization, as well as layoffs. For an account of the labor dispute, click here. On Friday, police detained 42 TEKEL workers following protests in front of the AKP's Ankara headquarters.


UPDATE I (1/23) -- TEKEL workers are now going on hunger strike to protest their being assigned temporary worker status, effectively denying them employment rights they had held previously before the government shutdown the factories in which they previously worked with full rights before the government moved to privatize TEKEL. Bianet reports that 40 workers have joined the hunger strike, and that five of them have been hospitalized. On Thursday, Turk-Is declared it would organize a general strike if the government does not respond to TEKEL's demands by Jan. 26.

Gül Vetoes Private Labor Employment Bill

From Bianet:

The International Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mine and General Workers' Unions (ICEM) lodged strong protest early this week demanding Turkey President Abdullah Gül veto a bill giving "Private Labour Offices" broad rights to place temporary workers in enterprises. On 9 July, President Gül did veto the bill, and now the ICEM demands the Turkish Parliament not bring it back.

. . . .

Mustafa Kumlu, President of the Confederation of Turkish Trade Unions (Türk-İş), said accurately it would render existing mechanisms between unions and government useless. Kumlu, an ICEM Executive Committee member, said "social rights, social security, and other benefits" would disappear under this legislation.

For full article, click here. For coverage of ICEM's meeting in TDZ, click here.