Take It from Turkish Workers: You Don’t Want a Strongman

What has happened to workers in Turkey since the country voted to concentrate power in one man, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, should be a warning flashing red to workers elsewhere.

“When democracy shrinks, it hurts workers—when one man has all the power,” said Arzu Çerkezoğlu, president of Turkey’s Confederation of Progressive Trade Unions (DISK). “Parliament became useless, there’s no separation of powers. The president can control the laws that are made, and the judicial system. The justice system became an instrument of politics.

“Our labor laws are not functioning,” she said. “Workers’ share of national income is less.” Annual inflation stands at 38 percent—and that’s the lowest since 2021. Annual inflation for housing and utilities is 74 percent.

DISK represents blue-collar workers in the public and private sectors. A sister federation, KESK, represents white-collar public employees. A majority of the 327,000 DISK members work for municipalities or in factories.

In 2017 DISK worked to educate its members to vote no on a referendum that would change Turkey’s constitution to concentrate more power in the president, the post Erdoğan had held since 2014 (before that, he had been prime minister since 2003). “We did trainings in the workplace,” Çerkezoğlu said. “We showed examples from other countries and we predicted what would happen here.”

But Turkey’s unions are at only 10-12 percent density, and some of their leaders are pro-Erdoğan. Voters approved the referendum by 51.4 percent, and Erdoğan assumed vast new powers starting in 2019.

UNION LEADERS OFTEN ARRESTED

Now, arrests of union leaders are common. One DISK vice president spent time in jail recently, charged with “terrorist activities.” In Europe, only Belarus—where the dictatorship is official—has a worse record on repression of unions.

“The arrests are a message to society,” Çerkezoğlu said, “not to speak out.” That message is unrelenting and pervasive. Two prominent movie actors were just sued by the government—for statements they made in 2013.

Traditionally DISK has led big rallies on May Day. This year the government forbade May Day demonstrations in Istanbul’s famous Taksim Square, as it has almost every year since 1979. So the unions—and young people—gathered in a different location, somewhere between 50,000 and 100,000 people. Their slogan was “We will reclaim bread, justice, and freedom.”

When polls showed that he might lose this year’s presidential election to Ekrem Imamoğlu, the mayor of Istanbul, in March Erdoğan had Imamoğlu arrested and charged with terrorism, corruption, and not being a college graduate. Ten weeks later the mayor is still in jail under pre-trial detention.

IT’S COLD IN SILIVRI

After the arrest, Özgür Çelik told me, “trade unions were among the very first organized groups to take to the streets in Istanbul.” Çelik is head of the Istanbul chapter of the social democratic party that was running Imamoğlu for president, the Republican People’s Party (CHP). “It was the unionized workers and union representatives who stood outside Şişli Municipality [whose mayor was also arrested] to oppose the arrest of their elected mayor, leading with courage and determination.

“Soon after, unions from all over Turkey—especially those affiliated with DİSK—started arriving en masse. For one full week, we were in Saraçhane [a large park in Istanbul] every day. And every day, unions came with their members and stood shoulder to shoulder in the fight to repel this anti-democratic attempt.

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“Since March 19, we have been holding rallies in a different city of Turkey every weekend and in a different district of Istanbul every week. Trade unions continue to show up—with their flags, banners, and members—offering powerful support to our movement. They are standing up for democracy.”

Because of pent-up anger at Turkey’s direction, the huge demonstrations protesting the arrest included a host of other anti-government demands as well. The increasing difficulty to make ends meet has caused Erdoğan to lose support.

I saw the infamous prison in Silivri, an outlying district of Istanbul, where Imamoğlu is being held. Unionists have an old joke. A person starts to make a political comment but stops and says, “You know, it’s cold in Silivri...” The pro-democracy rally was held in Silivri that week, and speakers thanked the crowd with “It’s not so cold in Silivri anymore.”

UNIONS BANNED

DISK’s history was interrupted in 1980 when the Turkish military took over the government and the federation and its affiliates were banned. Its entire executive committee was jailed, charged with terrorism. “It was a class-conscious intervention,” Çerkezoğlu said. “The main target was the working class and labor rights. Workers lost most of their union rights for a decade—there were no union freedoms.”

Leaders who weren’t in jail went into exile in Europe, spending their time propagandizing against the dictatorship and raising funds for prisoners and their families. Some workers in Turkey were forced to join “yellow” pro-company unions.

In 1992, real unions were once more permitted, though many returning leaders found themselves blacklisted from jobs.

“Instead of protecting the right to organize, the government has sided with employers and used the police to apply pressure on union members,” Çelik said. “This is still happening—just recently, in a factory in Çatalca (Polonez Factory), workers were fired for joining a union and were surrounded by law enforcement as they tried to protest.”

The CHP and DISK call for removing barriers to unionization, along with protecting workplace safety and shifting the tax burden from the working class to the rich.

DEMOCRACY AND UNION FIGHTS

“Turkey is a difficult country in which to have different ideas,” Çerkezoğlu said. “But we’re used to it. Since we were founded in 1967 we have always criticized the government, and we are always targeted.” The head of DISK’s Istanbul district, Asalettin Arslanoğlu, says he’s been arrested seven times, spending a total of a year and a half in jail.

DISK leaders say they have to fight for democracy in society and for their members’ rights at the same time, and that those two fights are equally important. On May 31 23,000 municipal workers and their family members–drivers, gardeners, janitors, and others–struck and marched in the city of Izmir for higher pay.

Is Çerkezoğlu personally fearful of being arrested? “No,” she said. “Getting arrested is part of the struggle. Every morning I ask, ‘Who will they arrest today?’ But it’s not good to get used to it.”