Labor Union Leadership (original) (raw)
Related papers
On Strong, Resolute Labor Union Leaders
Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences, 2015
Unions were initially created as economic supports for workers. Along the course of time, they developed with difficulties and acquired social and invariably political dimensions. Unions' emergence in Turkey was late, while their improvement was painful. All over the world, as unions grew bigger, union activities got more professional along with acquirement of new technical possibilities, on one hand; and considerable losses in the early enthusiasm also occurred, on the other hand. Business owners sometimes associated unions with radical opposing political currents in their inappropriate fear. But the mentioned currents did try to penetrate into those establishments, where economical considerations with a view to welfare were supposed to have been the overweighing Issues. Even though at times, some union leaders themselves essentially neglected the workers while solely focusing on an increase of their own might, through false unions; their wrongdoing should not be loaded on to honest union activities. In this article, also a novel by Robbins which is very related to the topic, is made much use of.
Changes in Unionism Policy in Turkey: Unionism and Politics
Turkish unionism contained the basic features of guardianship democratic structure until the 1990s, when it boomed with demand for real democracy. A democratic unionship style was adopted that was free of active political powers of the country and outside their domain, and even influencing them and carrying out a more efficient and productive struggle for rights. Beginning in 1989, the Turkish worker movement found the chance to solve its ages long problems by organizing inside real democracy. The striking features of worker movement between 1983 and 1995 were its mobility from the bottom to the top, richness in new sorts of action, and clearance of pre-1980 ideological remnants. Unionship concept went under a radical change of mind due to the signs of need for reorganization coming from worker base, coupled with anti-revolutionist culture generated by September 12. Those years passed between the unionship approach, which was the product of guardianship and working class and strengthening inclination of civilian opposition demanding for more democracy.
As a country located at the outside of 'center' according to conceptualisation of Immanuel Wallerstein, the born and rising of trade unions in Turkey has been in a quite late date when compared to the 'central' countries, especially to Britain. It's understandable for every country to having its own traditions and cultural approaches toward labour relations. So there are several (may be more) industrial relations approaches (or traditions) in labour relations history. In some industrial relations systems, the raison d'etre of trade unions has been to protect and improve labour conditions and other labour issues via collective bargaining. In some traditions trade unions means more than that: to war with capitalism or to collapse it. And while in some traditions politics has been one of the most effective weapons for trade unions to protect working class, on the other hand in some systems politics has been one of the most dangerous activities of trade unions and in those systems usually political activities has been banned for the unions. Looking at the labour history in Turkey the latter tradition is a quite familiar approach. More than one century, all the acts that regulate the area for trade unions have seen the political area for unions as an unwelcome field. In that paper I intend to present all the related acts that had such a tendency and explore the main reasons under that approach. For that aim, I am going to examine the Act
Scrutinizing Union Democracy: Organization and Opposition in Turkish Unions of the Post-1982 Context
Scrutinizing Union Democracy: Organization and Opposition in Turkish Unions of the Post-1982 Context, 2017
Although unionism in Turkey has lost a considerable amount of power due to globalization and other processes peculiar to the post-1982 context, union democracy remains as a vital issue for the political inclusion and participation of large masses in the society. In the study the importance of legislation and other procedural regulations in the Turkish context that shape the organizational structure of unionism are emphasized as direct determinants of democratic conduct qualities. The historical development, structure and sources of Turkish unionism, collective and individual union freedoms, union member, official and representative protections, mandatory and other union organs, delegation, representation and electoral systems and related procedures are thoroughly examined for the evaluation of all external (constitutional and legal) and internal (union statutory and lesser regulatory) rules to comprehensively present the union democracy climate in Turkey. Tensions arising from principles of union security/discipline and individual/minority rights are identified in relation with each aspect of these formal organizational features. The results of central presidential elections are analysed in order to determine the state of opposition in each organization, and are then evaluated together with the formal rules of each organization. The study partially establishes a correlation between these two sets of variables, asserting that the lack of organized opposition in Turkish unions stems from the current general organizational structure that cannot produce autonomous centers of power within the union hierarchy unless certain changes are made by unions themselves or through the force of law.
When Local Class Unionism Meets International Solidarity: A Case of Union Revitalisation in Turkey
Global Labour Journal, 2018
The article concerns the recent transformation and ensuing successes of a Turkish trade union of road transport workers called Tüm Taşıma İşçileri Sendikası (TÜMTİS). In the mid-2000s, TÜMTİS was mainly organised in small-sized freight companies having around 1 500 members with collective contracts. The strategic choice of a new leadership to concentrate on a large-scale, international firm with the support of Global Unions was the turning point. The ensuing United Parcel Service campaign ended with a collective agreement for nearly 2 700 new members in 2011. The union won its second large-scale organising victory at DHL in 2014. At the time of writing, a third large-scale firm is on the verge of recognition. To scrutinise this case, I use the power resources approach in a critical way. To the approach, I add an examination of the subjectivities of union leaders by drawing on the debates about different types of unionisms, importance of the ideology and motivations. I argue that the agency behind this revitalisation can be only explained by taking both its objectivities and subjectivities into account. While the class unionism embraced by TÜMTİS leaders explains the subjective side of the story, associational power from below and its meeting with international solidarity play the key role on the objective side.
Oligarchy as a Trade Union Default Setting: A Structural Re-examination of Union Democracy in Turkey
Oligarchy as a Trade Union Default Setting: A Structural Re-examination of Union Democracy in Turkey, 2017
From the earliest days of the labor movement, rank-and-file members' supposed democratic control over their trade unions has been a constant problem due to certain sociological factors that reinforce oligarchy in organizations, and the five-decade Turkish experience of free unionism has proven to be no exception to this general tendency. This article first of all discusses the basics of union democracy as a concept and clarifies the fundamental difficulties for its consolidation. Secondly, it examines the post-1982 Turkish context of unionism structurally and procedurally on the issues of centralism, union organs, delegation and workplace representation, and asserts that the union organizational structure in Turkey further reinforces oligarchical rule, preventing the emergence of opposition and leadership contention within large unions. It also discusses the current structural provisions that support or hinder union democracy in a direct manner under the Trade Unions and Collective Labor Agreements Act No. 6356 regime in comparison to the former union laws.
New Trends and Comparative Analysis on Unionization among Professionals: The Case of Turkey
2016
There has been an increasing interest in unionization and decrease in union membership both for blue and white collar workers during the recent years in all over the world. For quite some time, public employment remains the largest group of union membership. However, this seems to be changing due to recent developments in professional workers‟ demand for unionization mostly via professional associations, although ”not surprisingly, professionals and managerial personnel have been less likely to approve of labor unions and exhibit less confidence in organized labor and labor leaders than blue-collar workers (Brint, 1985)”.This paper attempts to shed light on what we know and don‟t know about new trends in unionization and unionization among professionals. Paper mainly includes 4 sections. It starts with the introduction and in that part unionization is broadly defined. In the first section, unions‟ historical development will also be investigated. More importantly, paper will try to ...
Trade Unions in Turkey 2022, 2022
This report updates the Trade Unions in Turkey, 2018 report published by the Friedrich Ebert Stiftung. In an earlier report in 2012, Dinler provided a summary of the historical background and the basic characteristics of Turkish trade unionism. The 2018 report focused on the changes between 2012 and 2018 and tapped into the statistical data, especially workers’ union membership data that the Ministry of Labor and Social Security (MoLSS) began to provide in 2013. This report provides a brief overview of the historical background and explores developments since 2018.