Evolving structure of collective bargaining in Turkey (1990–2005)

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Notes

This study was originally a national report prepared for a research project co-financed by the European Commission and the University of Florence (VS/2003/0219-512.359910).

1. ILO, Conciliation and Arbitration Procedures in Labour Disputes. A Comparative Study (Geneva: ILO, 1980), p.13.

2. The CLASLA makes a distinction between the member workers. Of these workers, those who are members on the conclusion date shall benefit starting from the effective date; those who join the signatory union after the conclusion date shall benefit starting from the date on which the employer is informed of their membership by the signatory union. The effective date may be the same with the conclusion date but an earlier date, the day following expiration date of the previous CLA at the earliest, may be specified as the effective date.

3. Due to the principle of voluntary unionism, the consent of the signatory union is not required for non-member workers to benefit from the agreement through the payment of solidarity dues. Workers who are not members of the signatory trade union on the date of conclusion of the collective labour agreement, or those who are subsequently recruited but do not join the signatory union, or those who resigned or were expelled from the signatory union after the conclusion date may benefit from the agreement if they pay ‘solidarity dues’ to the signatory union. Workers wanting to benefit from the agreement by paying solidarity dues shall do so starting from the date on which such a request is made to the employer. But, the date of request may not be a date prior to the conclusion of the CLA.

4. Any party challenging the accuracy of the statistics may lodge an appeal with the Ankara court of labour within 15 days of the publication date. The court shall render a decision within 15 days at the latest. An appeal can be made to the Court of Cassation against the decision of the labour court by those interested or by the Ministry. The decision of the Court of Cassation and the statistics that have not been challenged during the 15-day-period shall be final (CLASLA, Art. 12).

5. ILO, Conciliation in Industrial Disputes, A Practical Guide (Geneva: ILO, 1983), p.3; A. Gladstone, Voluntary Arbitration of Interest Disputes, ILO publication (Geneva: ILO, 1984), p.2.

6. Conciliation has thus been described as an extension of CB with third party assistance, or simply as ‘assisted CB’ (ILO, Conciliation, p.4).

7. The Council of Ministers may issue regulations governing the mode of implementation of laws or designating matters ordered by law, provided that they do not conflict with existing laws and are examined by the Council of State (High Administrative Court). Regulations are signed by the President of the Republic and published in the Official Gazette (Const., Art. 115). The Prime Ministry, the ministries, and public corporate bodies may issue by-laws in order to ensure the application of laws and regulations relating to their particular fields of operation, provided that they are not contrary to these laws and regulations (Const., Art. 124).

8. ILO, Conciliation and Arbitration, p.17; Gladstone, p.5.

9. The Supreme Arbitration Board, under the chairmanship of the president of the labour chamber of the Court of Cassation, shall consist of the following members (CLASLA, Art. 53): 1. A member to be selected by the Council of Ministers from among persons having knowledge and experience in economics, management, social policy or labour law and who shall not have any ties in any way with workers' and employers' organizations nor any function in the organs of the political parties and who shall be outside the ministries; 2. A lecturer in labour law or economics to be selected by the Higher Education Council from among the teaching staff of the universities; 3. The Director-General of Labour of the Ministry of Labour; 4. Two members to be designated by the workers' confederation having the largest number of member workers; 5. Two members to be designated by the employers' confederation having the largest number of member employers, one of them representing public employers.

10. Jobs in which industrial action is prohibited are listed in Article 29 as follows: 1. Life or property preservation; 2. Funeral and mortuary services; 3. Production of lignite used for thermal power plants, water, electricity and city gas; exploration, production, processing and distribution of natural gas and petroleum; petrochemical work starting from naphtha and natural gas; 4. Banking and notary services; 5. Fire fighting, urban sea, land and railway and other mass transportation services on rail provided by the public sector.

Establishments subject to prohibition as listed in Article 30 are: 1. Any health related establishment, such as vaccine and serum manufacturing institutions, hospitals, clinics, sanatoriums, health centres, dispensaries and pharmacies except for establishments manufacturing medicine; 2. Educational and teaching institutions, childcare facilities and rest homes; 3. Cemeteries; 4. Establishments run directly by the Ministry of National Defence, the General Command of Gendarmerie and the Coast Guard Command.

11. Temporary industrial action prohibitions exist in the following three cases (Art. 31): 1. A strike cannot be called in time of war or during a general or a partial mobilization. 2. Where the life of the community is paralyzed by a disaster caused by fire, flood, landslide, avalanche or earthquake, the Council of Ministers may, limited to such areas and the period of effect of the case, prohibit strikes in establishments or industries deemed necessary. The lifting of the prohibition shall be subject to the same procedure. 3. Strikes may not be conducted in sea, air or land transportation vehicles which have started but have not completed the journey to domestic terminal points.

12. This article draws on Council Directive 2001/23/EC of 12 March 2001 on the approximation of the laws of the Member States relating to the safeguarding of employees' rights in the event of transfers of undertakings, businesses or parts of undertakings or businesses.

13. This provision draws on the ILO Convention no. 158 of 1982 on Termination of Employment and Council Directive 98/59/EC of 20 July 1998 on the approximation of the laws of the Member States relating to collective redundancies.

14. M. Sur, Toplu İş Sözleşmesi Özerkliği ve Teşmil (Ankara: DEU Hukuk Facültesi Yayinevi, 1991), p.109.

15. Ibid., pp.135, 142.

16. M. Ekonomi, ‘2822 Sayılı Toplu İş Sözleşmesi, Grev ve Lokavt Kanununda 3451 Sayılı Kanun İle Yapılan Değişiklikler’, Kamu-İş, Vol.1, No.7 (January 1989), p.7.

17. Automatic check-off means that union dues (membership dues) and solidarity dues will be deducted from the wages of the concerned workers and submitted to the relevant TU by the employer. The check-off system provides the TU with an automatic, continuous flow of union dues. Under previous legislation that was in effect until May 1983, a TU representing at least a quarter of the total number of workers employed at the workplace could benefit from the automatic check-off system. Such a regulation of the check-off system was featherbedded in nature giving rise to financially strong unions but at the same time caused proliferation of trade unions, especially local unions (union established at the level of a single workplace). Also as a result of this system, leadership posts became very rewarding financially. The UA of May 1983 limits the scope of application of the automatic check-off system (Art. 61). The signatory union benefits from the automatic check-off system. If there is no CLA or if the CLA has expired, then the authorized union is entitled to the automatic check-off system. Other TUs have to collect union dues on their own.

18. Official Gazette, 18 July 2006.

19. Official Gazette, 7 July 2004.

20. For example, the leaders of the three workers' confederations, TURK-IS, DISK and HAK-IS, became parliamentarians.