Introduction

The Condition of the Working Class in Turkey ‘The most formative work in decades on the Turkish political economy and the devastation wrought by an authoritarian government on the country’s workers. I highly recommend this book for all those who seek to understand the emergence of widespread resistance by an increasingly militant working class in Turkey.’ —Immanuel Ness, Professor of Political Science at Brooklyn College of the City University of New York and author of Organizing Insurgency ‘A deep and timely analysis with an overarching narrative of the Turkish labour markets under the conditionalities of late capitalism [...] An indispensable resource on the economics of labour.’ —A. Erinç Yeldan, Professor of Economics at Kadir Has University ‘Impressively comprehensive [...] The contributions not only cover the sphere of production, but equally social reproduction including the importance of unpaid labour in patriarchal capitalist structures, as well as migration as a source of cheap labour. A must-read for everyone interested in the role of Turkish labour in the crisis-ridden 21st century.’ —Andreas Bieler, Professor of Political Economy, University of Nottingham ‘This excellent book is remarkable for its courageous and insightful analysis. Against the grain of the contemporary near silence about the struggles of society’s surplus value producers who make a living in miserable conditions, this volume articulates the suffering inflicted and brings to the fore the collective forms of resistance to that suffering.’ —Professor Werner Bonefeld, University of York The Condition of the Working Class in Turkey Labour Under Neoliberal Authoritarianism Edited by Ça!atay Edgücan Şahin and Mehmet Erman Erol First published 202% by Pluto Press New Wing, Somerset House, Strand, London WC2R %LA www.plutobooks.com Copyright © Ça!atay Edgücan Şahin and Mehmet Erman Erol 202% The right of the individual contributors to be identified as the authors of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act %&88. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library ISBN &(8 0 ()*+ )+%2 & Hardback ISBN &(8 0 ()*+ )+%% 2 Paperback ISBN &(8 0 ()*+ )+%* 0 PDF ISBN &(8 0 ()*+ )+%+ , EPUB Typeset by Stanford DTP Services, Northampton, England v Contents List of Abbreviations vii Acknowledgements ix Introduction % Mehmet Erman Erol and Ça!atay Edgücan Şahin PART I: RESTRUCTURING Neoliberal Restructuring of Labour and the State: From Military Dictatorship to the AKP Era %. Not-So-Strange Bedfellows: Neoliberalism and the AKP in Turkey %* Mehmet Erman Erol 2. Turkey’s Labour Markets Under Neoliberalism: An Overview +8 Kerem Gökten +. Commodification and Changing Labour in Turkey: The Working Class in the Public Sector ** Koray R. Yılmaz ). Neoliberal Transformation of Turkey’s Health Sector and its Effects on the Health Labour Force (* Sebiha Kablay Gender, Migration and Rural Aspects of Neoliberal Restructuring *. Between Neoliberalism and Conservatism: Recent Developments and New Agendas in Female Labour Policies in Turkey && Demet Özmen Yılmaz The Condition of the Working Class in Turkey vi ,. The Making of the Rural Proletariat in Neoliberal Turkey %%, Coşku Çelik (. Burden or a Saviour at a Time of Economic Crisis? AKP’s ‘Open-Door Migration Policy’ and its Impact on Labour Market Restructuring in Turkey %+* Ertan Erol PART II: CONTAINMENT 8. Social Assistance as a Non-Wage Income for the Poor in Turkey: Work and Subsistence Patterns of Social Assistance Recipient Households %** Denizcan Kutlu &. A View of Precarisation from Turkey: Urban-Rural Dynamics and Intergenerational Precarity %(8 Elif Hacısaliho!lu %0. When the Law is Not Enough: ‘Work Accidents’, Profit Maximisation and the Unwritten Rules of Workers’ Health and Safety in New Turkey 200 Murat Özveri %%. Are We All in the Same Boat? Covid-%& and the Working Class in Turkey 222 Yeliz Sarıöz Gökten PART III: RESISTANCE %2. Reconsidering Workers’ Self-Management in Turkey: From Resistance to Workers’ Self-Management Possibilities/ Constraints 2)+ Berna Güler and Erhan Acar %+. Organised Workers’ Struggles Under Neoliberalism: Unions, Capital and the State in Turkey 2,2 Ça!atay Edgücan Şahin Notes 28+ Contributors 2&2 Index 2&* 1 Introduction Mehmet Erman Erol and Ça!atay Edgücan Şahin But the bourgeoisie defends its interests with all the power placed at its disposal by wealth and the might of the State. (Friedrich Engels, The Condition of the Working Class in England) In the aftermath of the Soma mining disaster in Turkey where +0% workers died in 20%), the then Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdo!an cited nineteenth-century Britain to prove that these accidents are ‘usual’. ‘I went back to British history’ he said, ‘some 20) people died there after a mine collapsed in %8+8. In %8,,, +,% miners died in Britain. In an explosion in %8&), 2&0 people died there’ (Hurriyet Daily News, 20%)). These anachronistic comments were shocking; but the comparison with the ‘savage capitalism’ of nineteenth-century Britain also exposed the modus operandi of Turkish capitalism in the twenty-first century. This ‘savage capitalism’ of nineteenth-century Britain was most famously analysed by Friedrich Engels in The Condition of the Working Class in England, originally published in %8)*. Having been completed on the 200th anniversary of Engels’ birth, and in the context of President Erdo!an’s comments, this book project takes its inspiration from Engels, and specifically his above-mentioned work, as the title of this book suggests. Written in the heyday of the industrial revolution, young Engels’ impressive study and his documentation of the condition of the English working class reflected the brutal exploitation of labour in Victorian England. He was appalled by widespread child labour, low wages, miserable conditions, poor health, death rates and environmental destruction, as well as the English bourgeoisie. The Condition of the Working Class in Turkey 2 Looking at the condition of the working class in Turkey in the twenty-first century, we share a similar sentiment, which led us to edit this volume. We wanted to document and analyse the condition of the working class in Turkey in the twenty-first century, as we are appalled by widespread ‘work murders’, low wages, miserable conditions, widespread precarity and insecurity, commodification, extractivism, systematic violation of labour rights, and practices of gendered division of labour. The developments since the Covid-%& pandemic have so far proven that this condition will be worsened as the pandemic is seen as an economic ‘opportunity’ by the capitalists and the state; and that Turkey could seek to ‘capitalise on a possible shake-up of global supply chains’ (Pitel, 2020) through its cheap labour. Turkey’s political economy since the twentieth century has never been truly pro-labour, as the country embraced capitalist development which relied on the exploitation of labour. However, as capitalism developed, so did class struggle. The labour movement intensified its struggle against the bourgeoisie and the capitalist state during the %&,0s and %&(0s. This period was also marked by importsubstitution industrialisation and development planning which entailed certain improvements on the condition of labour. However, this condition unsettled Turkish capitalists and the state; and their response was the transition to neoliberalism in %&80 via a brutal military coup which aimed to ‘put an end to class-based politics’ (Yalman, 200&). Hence, the last four decades which were marked by neoliberalism dismantled the gains of labour and paved the way for the above-mentioned condition of the working class in Turkey in the twenty-first century. Against this background, the aim of this volume is to make sense of )0 years of neoliberal restructuring of labour; with an extensive framework that deals with various aspects of this restructuring. A significant part of this neoliberal restructuring of labour was carried out under the AKP (Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi – Justice and Development Party), in power since 2002. Much like the contemporary ‘authoritarian populist’ parties and ‘strongman’ leaders that benefited from the discontent following the 2008 global financial crisis; Turkey’s AKP and its leader Erdo!an capitalised on the Introduction 3 discontent and the legitimacy crisis that was caused by the country’s ‘lost decade’ of the %&&0s and the infamous 200% crisis (Madra & Yılmaz, 20%&). However, like most of these leaders and parties, the AKP decisively implemented the neoliberal framework in the last two decades. In conventional analyses which dismiss the significance of class relations, the AKP period is generally assessed in terms of a rupture from the earlier periods of Turkey’s political economy. Some other accounts also make a distinction within the AKP era; i.e. the ‘good AKP years’ (2002–0( or pre-20%%) and the later ‘authoritarian turn’, ‘democratic backsliding’ and ‘bad economic management’ (cf. Erol, 20%&; cf. Tansel, 20%8). However, we contend that, as far as the restructuring and management of labour is considered, there has been a direct continuity with earlier periods (since the %&80s) in terms of neoliberal authoritarianism, attempts at labour market flexibilisation, deunionisation, insecurity, precarity, privatisation, commodification, financialisation and restructuring in many sectors. Hence, while recognising the pecularities of the condition of Turkey’s working class under AKP rule, the aim of this volume is to make sense of )0 years of neoliberal restructuring of labour in its totality and continuity. It is important to emphasise, however, that the AKP governments managed to be more decisive and overcome the legitimacy issues that previous governments faced, through various containment mechanisms and populist cushions (Akçay, 20%8) such as financial ‘inclusion’, neoliberal social assistance strategies or identity-based politics, as well as promoting pro-government unionisation. Nevertheless, in recent years, Turkey’s political economy under the AKP has become crisis-ridden and this ‘successful’ management of contradictory capitalist social relations became increasingly difficult. Concomitantly, this was complemented by an unprecedented authoritarianism beyond the already authoritarian political economy of Turkey. This arguably reflects the weakening hegemony of the AKP (as seen in local elections in 20%& and frequent ‘currency crises’) and the tensions between the ruling classes and the AKP. Against the background of this crisis-ridden condition and Erdo!an’s authoritarian-Islamist ‘one-man rule’, there are calls for a return to the ‘good AKP years’ (i.e. 2002–0() or the post-200% rule-based The Condition of the Working Class in Turkey 10 such as union-political party relationships, employers’ union busting strategies and government’s strategy of postponement of strikes with the aim of achieving deunionisation. Hence, the chapter analyses the relationships between the state and the unions, capital and the unions and finally the working class and the unions mostly based on major worker movements and actions in the neoliberal era. Conventional (and partly critical) approaches to Turkey’s political economy generally focus on popular dichotomies of democracy and authoritarianism, secularism and Islamism, and state and market. As demonstrated in the structure of the book, however, this volume offers a very different perspective. It has a direct and comprehensive focus on the ‘condition of the working class’ in Turkey in the last four decades of neoliberalism; from the military dictatorship of the %&80s to the AKP years. It centralises and prioritises the category of labour and class struggle. In this context, the contributors to this volume offer a wide array of subjects pertinent to the ‘condition of labour’ in Turkey; from gender dynamics to refugee workers, from agrarian labour relations to workers’ health and safety, from the politics of labour restructuring to factory occupations, and from precarity to organised labour. This breadth of coverage and rigorous empirical analysis are provided by researchers whose work has long focused on the issue of labour in Turkey. Within this framework and beyond the popular dichotomies, this book enables a full grasp of the political economy of Turkey; a rising regional capitalist power, and a country consistently listed in the ten worst countries in the world for working8people. 6:6;:3g/=p5? Akçay, Ü. (20%8) ‘Neoliberal Populism in Turkey and Its Crisis’, Working Paper No. %00/20%8, Institute for International Political Economy Berlin, www.econstor.eu/bitstream/%0)%&/%(*88)/%/%0%*,&%8%%.pdf (accessed July 2020). Burnham, P., Lutz, K.G., Grant, W. and Layton-Henry, Z. (2008) Research Methods in Politics, 2nd edn, London: Red Globe Press. Engels, F. (2008) [%8)*] The Condition of the Working-Class in England in 1&44, trans. F. Kelley-Wischnewetzky, New York: Cosimo Classics. Introduction 11 Erol, M.E. (20%&) ‘State and Labour under AKP Rule in Turkey: An Appraisal’, Journal of Balkan and Near Eastern Studies, 2% (,), ,,+–((. Hurriyet Daily News (20%)) ‘Turkish PM Cites %&th Century Britain to Prove Mine Accidents are “Typical”’, www.hurriyetdailynews.com/turkish-pmcites-%&th-century-britain-to-prove-mine-accidents-are-typical-,,)(2 (accessed July 2020). Madra, Y. and Yılmaz, S. (20%&) ‘Turkey’s Decline into (Civil) War Economy: From Neoliberal Populism to Corporate Nationalism’, South Atlantic Quarterly, %%8 (%), )%–*&. Pitel, L. (2020) ‘Turkey’s Logistic Providers Adjust to the Strains of Covid-%&’, Financial Times, Special Report: Coronavirus and Logistic’, www.ft.com/content/2)db)*c0-&+&+-%%ea-8&&a-f,2a20d*),2* (accessed August 2020). Tansel, C.B. (20%8) ‘Authoritarian Neoliberalism and Democratic Backsliding in Turkey: Beyond the Narratives of Progress’, South European Society and Politics, 2+ (2), %&(–2%(. Yalman, G. (200&) Transition to Neoliberalism: The Case of Turkey in the 1%&(s, İstanbul: İstanbul Bilgi University Press. View publication stats