https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1667-8556
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ABSTRACT
Under authoritarian neoliberalism, Turkey has seen the number of legal strikes plummet since the mid-1990s. Alongside deepening authoritarianism, the AKP government banned nearly all legal strikes in the 2010s. How have working-class protests fared against this bleak backdrop? Have workers become pliant victims of a repressive regime of accumulation? Or is there evidence of fight left in the Turkish working class? This article addresses these questions through protest event analysis (PEA) of an original dataset of working-class protests between 2015 and 2019. Workers are found to have managed to maintain a significant protest performance despite the increasingly authoritarian environment.
Acknowledgements
We would like to thank Simon Watmough, Mathew Creighton and the anonymous reviewers of Turkish Studies for their valuable comments and suggestions.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1 Özkiziltan, “Authoritarian Neoliberalism”; Bozkurt-Güngen, “Labour”; Çelik, “Turkey’s New Labour”; Eğilmez, “Governing or Repressing Dissent”; Erol, “State and Labour”; Moudouros, “Constructing New Turkey’s Desired Worker”; Birelma, “Militant Minority”; and Şahin and Erol, The Condition of the Working Class.
2 Özdemir, “AKP’s Neoliberal Populism.”
3 See e.g., Çelik, “Turkey’s New Labour Regime”; Bozkurt-Güngen, “Labour and Authoritarian Neoliberalism”; Özkiziltan, “Authoritarian Neoliberalism”; Moudouros, “Constructing”; and Erol, “State and Labour.”
4 Silver, Forces of Labor, 3-19.
5 Koopmans and Rucht, “Protest Event Analysis,” 251.
6 Hutter, “Protest Event Analysis,” 359, and Koopmans and Rucht, “Protest Event Analysis,” 251.
7 Mello, Evaluating, 103.
8 Mello, Evaluating, 120; Doğan, Neoliberalizm, İşçiler ve Direniş, 223-286; and Birelma, “Subcontracted Employment,” 271.
9 Birelma, Trade Unions.
10 Doğan, “The Deradicalisationm,” and Birelma, “Subcontracted Employment.”
11 Çelik, “Turkey’s New Labour Regime,” and Gürcan and Mete, Neoliberalism, 111-119.
12 Birelma, Trade Unions in Turkey, 20.
13 ÇSGB, “Çalışma Hayatı İstatistikleri.”
14 In 2012, the AKP ratified a new trade union law;. However, the change brought little in the way of progress for unions. Especially in terms of the right to strike, the law did not bring any improvement. See Birelma, Trade Unions in Turkey 2022, 5.
15 Doğan, Neoliberalizm, İşçiler ve Direniş, 169-222.
16 Çelik, “Turkey’s New Labour Regime,” 619.
17 Teitelbaum, “Measuring Trade Union Rights.”
18 Çelik, “Turkey’s New Labour Regime”; Özkızıltan, “Authoritarian Neoliberalism”; and Erdinc, “Revisiting.”
19 Arslanalp and Erkmen, “Mobile Emergency Rule”; Bozkurt-Güngen, “Labour and Authoritarian Neoliberalism”; and Özkiziltan, “Authoritarian Neoliberalism.”
20 ITUC, 2021 ITUC Global Rights Index.
21 Yörük, The Politics of Welfare State, 43. For other reviews of such social policy measures see Akan, “The Political Economy”; Buğra, “Politics of Social Policy”; and Özdemir, “AKP’s Neoliberal Populism.”
22 Birelma, Trade Unions.
23 Birelma, “Subcontracted Employment,” and Birelma, Trade Unions.
24 Hyman, Understanding, 31.
25 Adaman, Buğra, and İnsel, “Societal Context,” and Doğan “The Deradicalisation.”
26 Buğra, “Politics of Social Policy,” and Yalman and Topal, “Labour Containment Strategies,” 456-457.
27 Hyman, Understanding, 2.
28 Doğan, “The Deradicalisation”: Bekmen, Ongel and Hadiz, “Contesting Working-Class Politics”: Parlak Poyraz, Neoliberal Dönemde; and Birelma, “When Local Class Unionism.”
29 Urhan, “Türkiye’de Kadın İşçilerin”; Alnıaçık, “Politik Bir Sorun Olarak”; and Birelma, Trade Unions.
30 Doğan, “The Deradicalisation,” 200.
31 Çelik, “Turkey’s New Labour Regime,” 633.
32 Bozkurt-Güngen, “Labour” 220.
33 Erol, “State and Labour.”
34 Moudouros, “Constructing.”
35 Özkiziltan, “Authoritarian Neoliberalism.”
36 Nichols and Sugur, Global Management and Özuğurlu, Anadolu'da Küresel Fabrikanın.
37 Türkmen, Eylemden Öğrenmek; Özden, “TEKEL resistance in Turkey”; and Yalman and Topal, “Labour Containment Strategies.”
38 Çelik, “The Wave of Strikes”; Erdinc, “Local Dynamics”; and Özveri, “Yasaklarla Şekillenmiş Endüstri İlişkileri.”
39 Bayraktar et al., 3. Havalimanı İşçileri.
40 Fougner and Kurtoğlu, “Transnational Labour Solidarity”; McGrath and Dinler, “Strategic Campaigning”; Saygılıgil, Bir Kadın Grevi; Birelma, “Militant Minority”; and Birelma, Ekmek ve Haysiyet Mücadelesi; and Birelma, Ekmek ve Haysiyet Mücadelesi
Blind reference 2.
41 Çoban, “Sendikal Örgütlenmede”; Gürcan and Mete, Neoliberalism; Koçak, “İnşaat İşkolunda”; and Birelma, “When Local Class Unionism.”
42 Tartanoğlu, “Beyond Informality,” and Dinler, “New Workers’ Struggles.”
43 Franzosi, The Puzzle of Strikes, and Velden et al. Strikes.
44 Beinin, Workers and Thieves; Biziukov, “The Dynamics”; Bizyukov and Dollbaum, “Using Protest Event Analysis”; Crowley and Olimpieva, “Labor Protests”; Elfstrom and Kuruvilla, “The Changing Nature”; and Zhang, “Worker Protests.”
45 Tilly Social Movements, 139.
46 Barrie and Ketchley, “Opportunity,” 196.
47 Robertson and Teitelbaum, “Foreign Direct Investment.”
48 Jessop, “Authoritarian Neoliberalism,” 359.
49 Huke, et al. “Disrupting .”
50 Silver, Forces of Labor.
51 Clua-Losada and Ribera-Almandoz, “Authoritarian Neoliberalism,” 43. See also Silver, Forces of Labor and Huke et al., “Disrupting the European Crisis.”
52 Çelik, “The Wave”. Based on the archives of the national daily Cumhuriyet between 1970 and 2016, Yörük finds a rise in industrial actions since the mid-2000s, reaching a peak in the mid-2010s, followed by a sharp decline in 2016. See Yörük, The Politics of Welfare State.
53 Arslanalp and Erkmen, “Mobile Emergency Rule,” 107; Bozkurt-Güngen, “Labour and Authoritarian Neoliberalism,” 233; Özkızıltan, “Authoritarian Neoliberalism,” 32; and Erol, “State and Labour,” 664.
54 For example, see Robertson and Teitelbaum, “Foreign Direct Investment”.
55 “Freedom in the World 2013–2022 Raw Data,” available at https://freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-world
56 The Covid-19 pandemic that hit the world at the beginning of 2020 caused lockdowns and a serious decrease in the labor protests in Turkey. To not overcomplicate the discussion, we preferred excluding the years hit by the pandemic. However, adding 2020 or 2021 would not change our generalizations. Besides the fluctuation because of the greater number of pandemic lockdowns in 2020, the average level of labor protests in 2020 and 2021 remained very similar to the level between 2016 and 2019.
57 See e.g., Franzosi, The Puzzle of Strikes; Haimson and Tilly (eds.), Strikes; and Shorter and Tilly, Strikes in France.
58 See e.g., Medel et al., “Politization in Labor Conflict,” and Nowak et al., Workers’ Movements.
59 Eidlin and Kerrissey, “Social Class.”
60 Silver, “Labor Unrest.”
61 Silver, Forces of Labor, 5-8, and Silver and Zhang, “China,” 174.
62 Karatasli et al., “A New Global Tide,” 18.
63 El-Mahdi, “Labour Protests.”
64 Beinin, Workers and Thieves.
65 Biziukov, “The Dynamics.”
66 Bizyukov and Dollbaum, “Using Protest Event Analysis.”
67 Crowley and Olimpieva, “Labor Protests,” and Christensen, “Labour under Putin.”
68 Elfstrom and Kuruvilla, “The Changing Nature”; Zhang, “Worker Protests”; and China Labour Bulletin, “Reimagining.”
69 Silier, “1960-1970 Döneminde,” and Petrol-İş, 89 Petrol-İş.
70 Uysal, Sokakta Siyaset; Gümrükçü, “Reconstructing”; and Yörük, The Politics.
71 Kaygısız, “2013 Yılı İşçi Sınıfı Eylemleri,” and Kaygısız, “2014 Yılı İşçi Sınıfı Eylemleri.”
72 Koopmans and Rucht, “Protest Event Analysis,” 231.
73 Hutter, “Protest Event Analysis,” 359m a d Koopmans and Rucht, “Protest Event Analysis,” 251.
74 Hutter, “Protest Event Analysis,” 359; Koopmans and Rucht, “Protest Event Analysis,” 236; and Silver, Forces of Labor, 180.
75 For a similar preference, see Biziukov, “The Dynamics,” 49.
76 Uysal, Sokakta Siyaset, 301; and Çelik, “Türkiye’de 2000’li,” 118.
77 Hyman, Strikes, 17.
78 Silver, Forces of Labor, 183.
79 Makal, Grev, 27; Chiu, “The Reign of Market,” 327; Fisher, Measurement of Labour Disputes, 99; and International Labor Organization, Freedom of Association, 144-147.
80 Biziukov does not include protests that are primarily directed against the state and not against an employer. The research on China seems to indicate the same preference.
81 Hutter, “Protest Event Analysis,” 347.
82 For studies that use a similar unit of analysis, see Dolenec et al., “Protest Event Dataset,” 157; Koopmans and Rucht, “Protest Event Analysis,” 237; and Pereyra et al., “Trends,” 336.
83 Hutter, “Protest Event Analysis,” 351, and Oliver and Myers, “How events,” 45.
84 Mccarthy et.al., “Images of Protest”; Oliver and Maney, “Political Processes”; and Myers and Cagnilia, “All the Rioting.”
85 Bozkurt-Güngen, “Labour,” 225, and Özkiziltan, “Authoritarian Neoliberalism,” 232.
86 At first, it may look somewhat expected to see fewer protests in the years after a protest wave such as the one in 2015. However, it does not have to be that way. The legal strike data of Turkey reveals that in the 1960s and the 1970s, almost every 3–4 years, Turkey saw a new record in the number of strike participants. The country experienced its then-biggest strike wave, which lasted for three consecutive years between 1989 and 1991, and then witnessed another record in strike participation in 1995.
87 Barrie and Ketchley, “Opportunity Without Organization”; Robertson and Teitelbaum, “Foreign Direct Investment”; and Tilly, Social Movements.
88 Wright, “Working-Class Power,” 962.
89 Cressey and McInnes, “Voting for Ford,” 14.
90 “Grev ve Lokavt İstatistikleri,” available at https://www.csgb.gov.tr/istatistikler/calisma-hayati-istatistikleri/calisma-genel-mudurlugu-istatistikleri/grev-ve-lokavt-istatistikleri/
91 Makal, Grev, 27; Chiu, “The Reign of Market,” 327; and Fisher, Measurement of Labour Disputes, 99.
92 For a historical account of DİSK, TÜRK-İŞ, and also HAK-İŞ see Blind, “A New Actor.”
93 Çelik, “Turkey’s New Labour Regime”; Moudouros, “Constructing”; Doğan, “The Deradicalisation”; Gürcan and Mete, Neoliberalism; and Birelma, Trade Unions in Turkey.
94 For İnşaat-İş see Dinler, “New Workers’ Struggles.”
95 Benassi and Vlandas, “Union Inclusiveness”; Birelma, “Militant minority”; Darlington, “Leadership and Union Militancy”; and Uetricht and Eidlin, “U.S. Union Revitalization.”
96 Chan, “Worker Organizing in China.”
97 Anner, “Strikes in Vietnam.”
98 Crowley and Olimpieva, “Labor Protests.”
99 Price, “White-Collar Unions,” 176.
100 Uysal, Sokakta Siyaset, 156.
101 Birelma, “Subcontracted Employment,” 271.
102 Birelma, “Subcontracted Employment,” 277.
103 Birelma, Trade Unions in Turkey, 7.
104 See Saygılıgil, Bir Kadın Grevi; Kıran, “Grev ve Direnişlerde Kadın”; Fougner and Kurtoğlu, “Transnational Labour Solidarity.”
105 Saygılıgil, Bir Kadın Grevi, 161, and Birelma, Ekmek ve Haysiyet Mücadelesi, 115, 297.
106 Lüküslü and Çelik, “Gendering,” 201, and Dedeoğlu and Gökmen, Dünya’da ve Türkiye’de, 75.
107 OECD, “Employment Rate.”
108 Özkan, “Money As Justice.”
109 Hyman, Marxism, 5-10, and Hyman, Understanding, 6-17.
110 Hyman, Understanding.
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Alpkan Birelma
Alpkan Birelma is an assistant professor in the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences at Özyeğin University in Istanbul. His research focuses on labor movements and working-class subjectivity. His most recent articles have been published in Canadian Journal of Development Studies and New Perspectives on Turkey.
Ebru Işıklı
Ebru Işıklı is a post-doctoral researcher at University College Dublin’s School of Social Policy, Social Work and Social Justice.
Huseyin Deniz Sert
H. Deniz Sert is a PhD Candidate in the Sociology Department at Koç University.