Class Struggle on the Rise in Turkey

With an inflation rate of almost 50%, Turkey has been hit hard by the capitalist economic crisis. Two major events marked the beginning of the response of the working class to its worsening living conditions. The first was the “we can’t make ends meet” demonstrations, organized first by DİSK (Confederation of Progressive Workers’ Unions) for increases in the minimum wage, and then by KESK (Confederation of Public Employees’ Unions) for increases in public workers salaries. The demonstrations organized by the leftist union confederations can be thought to have had an effect in the relatively high raises to the minimum wage (50%) and public workers salaries (30%). The second was the negotiations between the three metal unions, Türk Metal (Turkish Metal Workers’ Union) belonging to Türk İş (Confederation of Turkish Workers’ Unions), the largest confederation of regime unions, Birleşik Metal (United Metal Workers’ Union) belonging to DİSK and Öz Çelik İş (Real Turkish Steel Workers Union) belonging to the Islamist regime union confederation Hak İş (Confederation of Real Turkish Workers’ Unions), and the MESS (Metal Industrialists Union – the bosses’ organization). Türk Metal declared it would strike during the negotiations, and Birleşik Metal actually announced concrete plans for a strike. MESS had offered 12% first and the 17% after the strike was declared and eventually 22%. Türk Metal, Birlesik Metal nd Öz Çelik Is, representing a total of 150,000 metal workers, demanded something around 27-30%. Many metal workers thought the unions’ demand was not high enough. The date of the strike was expected to be announced at the tens of thousands strong central Türk Metal demonstration that was held in Kocaeli on the 2nd of January. This didn’t happen. However, Birlesik Metal first announced it would go on strike on four factories on January 14th in Mersin, Izmir and Kocaeli, and later declared six other factories in Gebze, Istanbul, Kocaeli, Bilecik and Bursa would start a strike on the 18th. Eventually, however, the three metal workers’ unions signed the contract for 27%. Only the Çimsataş factory in Mersin with over 800 workers, members of Birleşik Metal, went on a wildcat strike on January 12, demanding a total of 62% and occupying the factory. 13 workers were sacked without severance pay, and Birleşik Metal strove to end the strike and the occupation without the sacked workers being rehired or the workers’ demands being met. Çimsataş strike seemed to be against the tide, but it was to become the first of a so far small but significant strike wave.

On January 17, 700 iron miners in Sivas Divrik went on a three-day wildcat strike. The company made various threats to the workers and all workers were removed from the mine after representatives of Bağımsız Maden İş (Independent Mine Workers Union), a rank and file union outside the mainstream union confederations, spoke to the strikers. Police and soldiers were then deployed around the mine. The workers, who were paid about 5,250 TL, demanded a 51 percent increase in their wages, as well as improvements in their benefits. They also made demands such as the minimum salary of 8,000 TL, acknowledgment of the night shift, a raise every six months, and the granting of leave and bonuses during the holidays. The three-day strike ended in a compromise as the company made some concessions while refusing to grant all the demands. Nevertheless, the workers experienced first hand that they could improve their situation by striking, and also learned how much of a threat rank and file unions are considered to be in Turkey.

On January 19th, about 2,300 workers at the Farplas Automotive plant in Gebze, Kocaeli, stopped production in protest of the low raise they were offered. Farplas management, which has factories in seven countries and supplies parts to companies such as Ford, Mercedes, Renault, Volvo and Tesla, pledged in a meeting with workers’ representatives that wages would be increased and no workers would be laid off. However, about 150 workers who became members of Birleşik Metal during the struggle were laid off. In response, workers occupied the factory. More than 100 workers and trade unionists were beaten and detained in a police operation in the early morning. Workers from the surrounding factories marched to the Farplas factory gates to show solidarity. The Farplas workers continue their struggle. Farplas workers struggle demonstrates that the strike wave of Winter 2022 does not deem unions irrelevant as it has been claimed by some. DİSK, as well as KESK, are confederations on the edge, that is they are not regime unions today, but at certain times, like during the Çimsataş strike, they don’t hesitate to act like a regime union. Nevertheless, it is not for no reason that some of the most militant Farplas workers still joined DİSK at the risk of losing their jobs.

On February 1st, 2,000 workers at the Alpin Socks factory in Istanbul’s Beylikdüzü neghborhood launched a wildcat strike demanding an additional increase. Workers at the Alpin Socks factory, which manufactures for brands such as Adidas, Decathlon, Carrefour and H&M, stopped production after the rate of wage increase was announced. After a meeting between the workers’ representatives and the company boss, the company accepted demands for a 2,500 TL increase and no layoffs. The strike triggered struggles at other sock factories in Istanbul. The workers of Beks sock factory in Çorlu also went on strike in Çorlu. Alpin and other sock factories the strike spread to are merely the tip of the iceberg that is the textile industry of Turkey.

2,000 workers from 22 separate firms working on ship breaking at İzmir’s Aliağa district went on a wildcat strike at the beginning of February with a number of demands including regular raises, recognition of holiday rights and better job security. The non-unionized workers’ struggle ended in about two weeks without any gains as more and more workers went back to work separately. While non-union workers can struggle without unions and some have even won thanks to their ability to maintain their unity under conditions absolutely necessitating it, it would be a grave mistake to idealize the wildcat strike over the struggles of unionized workers. Indeed, Aliağa ship breaking workers’ struggle is significant for showing the limits of a strike without the experience of union organization.

A number of other strikes, smaller than the ones mentioned for the most part, took place which deserve mention. Approximately 200 female workers working at the Fruit and Vegetable Market in Tarsus, Mersin, left their jobs demanding a wage increase. Around 200 workers working in the Kızılay beverage factories in Erzincan and Afyon went on strike with demands for a decent salary increase, the return of their usurped personal rights, and the recognition of their union. The boss called the soldiers in front of the factory in Afyon. 80 workers from the packaging department of Polibak, located in the Çiğli district of İzmir and one of Turkey’s 500 largest industrial enterprises, stopped production demanding an increase in wages. Approximately 250 construction workers working at the Akkuyu Nuclear Power Plant in Mersin, being built by the Russian State company Rosatom, went on strike after their salaries were not paid for 2 months. Soldiers were sent to the construction site and many workers were dismissed. This did not prevent the number of striking workers at the construction site to increase to 700 later, protesting the nonpayment of salaries and demanding a raise. At the end of January, 40 miners working in Şırnak went on strike, demanding a wage increase. 800 private security workers working at Istanbul 3rd Airport also stopped work. 250 workers from Migros’ warehouse in Istanbul’s Esenyurt neighborhood, members of DGD-SEN (Warehouse, Port, Dock and Maritime Workers Union), a rank and file union outside the mainstream union confederations, were sacked by the management for striking for higher wages, only to be rehired and have their demands accepted by the company.

The strike, which took place on February 8 under the leadership of TTB (Turkish Doctors’ Association), which has more than 100,000 members, as well as TDB (Turkish Dentists’ Association) and SES (Health and Social Service Workers’ Union) which belongs to KESK, was a result of the government’s decision to reject the wage and social rights demands of health workers that have been voiced for a long time. Announcing that it will go on strike on February 17-18, the doctor’s union named Hekim Sen announced that its members who are members of TTB and TDB will join the strike. This strike action followed the one on December 14 under the leadership of various health workers’ organizations and will be followed by the strike organized by Hekim Sen on January 21. The public health sector in Turkey is in a particularly awful state, pitting the doctors, nurses and other health workers who have to treat an endless amount of patients against the patients who have wait weeks to get an appointment and hours to be treated. This situation often leads to the health workers, especially doctors being dismissive of if not mistreating patients, and patients physically attacking health workers. What is needed is for health workers and proletarian patients to engage in solidarity.

About 900 thousand people work all over Turkey as motorcycle couriers. The number of registered motorcycle couriers is 200 thousand people. 190 motorcycle couriers were victims of work accidents in 2020, and 203 in 2021. A significant part of the motorcycle couriers are employed as “artisan couriers”. According to this model, couriers establish individual companies and make an agreement with the actual company and provide services with their own motorcycles or commercial vehicles. On January 25, thousands of car couriers working as independent delivery workers at Trendyol, Turkey’s largest e-commerce platform, employing more than 9,000 people, went on strike across the country, rejecting the 11 percent raise offered by the company. Thousands of couriers refused to deliver in cities across the country, such as Istanbul, Izmir, Bursa, Antalya, Samsun, Tekirdag, Eskisehir, Mugla, Diyarbakir and Siirt. The fact that Trendyol employees, who demanded a 50 percent raise, received a 38 percent raise, inspired the employees of other cargo companies to go on strike. Couriers working at Aras Kargo, Hepsijet, Sürat Kargo, Scotty and Yurtiçi Kargo organized strikes and demonstrations. Thousands of couriers working at Yemeksepeti have been continuing their strikes and protests for days, demanding a salary of 5,500 TL, fringe benefits and union recognition. In Yemeksepeti, which has 9000 employees, 2,000 of DİSK’s Nakliyat İş (Progressive Land, Air and Rail Transportation Workers’ Union) member workers were legally excluded from the union as a result of forging official documents to change their employment category last year. The call for a boycott of Yemeksepeti, spearheaded by Nakliyat İş, resulted in a 70% decrease in orders. In general, workers demand increases in their wages and rights, as well as an end to the “artisan courier” model. In addition to Nakliyat İş, TÜMTİS (All Turkish Transport Workers Union), member of Türk-İş is also organized both in Yemeksepeti and in the rest of the sector. There is no doubt that if the bosses of the various companies in this sector end up having to recognize a union, they will prefer TÜMTİS.

The strike wave we are currently witnessing in Turkey is small, but it is nevertheless very significant as it expresses the workers’ anger at their rapidly deteriorating conditions in the face of the capitalist crisis, and moreover carries the potential of expanding and becoming a larger strike wave. If events take such a course, the ongoing struggles will have to link up, bringing together the unions that are capable of struggling together in a united front from below. Only by going through such struggles will the proletariat rediscover its most vital organ of class combat, the communist party.