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INTERNATIONALLY-RECOGNISED CORE LABOUR STANDARDS IN TURKEY

This report on the respect of internationally recognised core labour standards in Turkey is one of the series the ICFTU is producing in accordance with the Ministerial Declaration adopted at the first Ministerial Conference of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) (Singapore, 9-13 December 1996) and endorsed at the second WTO Ministerial Conference (Geneva, 18-20 May 1998) in which the Ministers stated: "We renew our commitment to the observance of internationally recognised core labour standards." These standards were further upheld in the International Labour Organisation (ILO) Declaration on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work adopted by the 174 member countries of the ILO at the International Labour Conference in June 1998.

Slightly over 12 percent of the total civilian labour force is organised into trade unions. There are three confederations of trade unions in Turkey: the Turkish Confederation of Workers Unions (Turk-Is), the Confederation of Turkish Real Trade Unions (Hak-Is), and the Confederation of Progressive Trade Unions (DISK). All are affiliated to the ICFTU, as is the Confederation of Public Workers' Union (KESK). This report was prepared in the light of consultations with these four ICFTU Turkish affiliates.

Turkey ratified ILO Convention No. 87 (1948), the Freedom of Association and Protection of the Right to Organise Convention in 1993 and ILO Convention No. 98 (1949), the Right to Organise and Collective Bargaining Convention, in 1952.

Many crucial Turkish labour laws date from the military dictatorship and restrict basic trade union rights, including the Constitution itself, Law 2821 concerning trade unions and Law 2822 concerning collective bargaining, strikes and lockouts. As a result of trade union struggle, this legislation was amended in 1988, in 1995 when important Constitutional amendments were made and in 1997, removing some of the restrictions and prohibitions imposed during military rule. However, numerous restrictions remain, as emphasised by the June 1998 ILO Conference Committee on the Application of Standards which concluded: "The Committee recalled with concern that this case had been discussed by the Conference Committee on a number of occasions and pointed out, once again, that for a number of years the Committee of Experts insisted on the need to strengthen the protection of workers against acts of anti-union discrimination, the need to eliminate restrictions on collective bargaining… the importance of granting workers in the public sector the right to bargain collectively and the need to lift the imposition of compulsory arbitration in free export processing zones for the settlement of collective labour disputes."

All workers except police and military personnel have the right to freedom of association, but the law says that the first level of union organisation can only be at industry or sectoral level and bans enterprise or occupational unions. In June 1997 public servants, including schoolteachers, obtained the legal right to form trade unions, but not to strike. Employers can be fined for anti-union discrimination, but the fines are too low to act as deterrents. The burden of proof lies with the worker to prove discrimination. The law does not require dismissed trade unionists to be reinstated except for shop stewards. The general lack of job security also undermines legal protection. In 1996, the ILO Committee on Freedom of Association stated: "The Committee strongly urges the Government to take the necessary measures to guarantee workers effective protection against acts of anti-union discrimination in conformity with the international undertakings it made in ratifying Convention No. 98 in June 1970." These criticisms have been repeated by the ILO Committee of Experts on the Application of Conventions and Recommendations in 1997 and 1998.

Over 1992-96, the authorities and the security forces often intervened on the side of employers during union organising campaigns and strikes. Workers were violently attacked by the police and by hired thugs. Trade unionists were sacked with the complicity of local authorities. Courts failed to provide protection against anti-union discrimination. Turkey’s unions estimate that around 40,000 trade unionists were sacked for union activities between 1992-96. There have been fewer reports of violence in 1997-98. However, private sector employers are continuing to try and get rid of unions. Furthermore, almost five million workers are unregistered in Turkey’s social security system despite the legal obligation for all employers to register their workers.

The DISK trade union confederation reports that between January 1996 and June 1998, a further 40,000 workers were fired because they had become members of trade unions affiliated to DISK, as indicated by the following examples. The Reslan Printing Company in Istanbul sacked 45 workers because they had become members of the DISK Basin-Is union in the printing sector. The Frigo-Pak factory in Inego/Bursa which produces canned fruits for the European market sacked 76 workers for joining the Gida-Is union of foodworkers. At the Ciragan Kempinski Hotel, where the majority of the 370 workers had joined the DISK Oley-Is union, the Supreme Court ruled that trainees were also workers. This increased the size of the workforce, and meant that Oley-Is lost its majority and did not have the right to bargain.

In March 1998, the glass/bottle manufacturer Sise Cam San A.S. offered large sums of money to workers to resign from the union as part of an effort to destroy the trade union Birlesik Metal-Is. In the Siemens factory in Bursa, 27 workers were recently dismissed in an effort by the employer to force them to resign from Birlesik Metal-Is. In the textiles sector, at the Zumrut Orme factory in Cerkezkoy, the employer dismissed more than 250 of the 350-strong workforce because they had become members of the Tekstil trade union. There are also reported to be many employers who refuse to allow workers in their factories to change their trade union, such as the Koc Group of factories (which includes Fiat cars). A major obstacle to union organising is the requirement for workers to notify a public notary (entailing payment of a fee) both for registering and for resigning from a union, making it very difficult to change union membership.

The Trade Union Act remains overly prescriptive and regulates internal union rules and constitutions too closely. The Constitution requires candidates for union office to have worked 10 years in the industry represented by the union. The Supreme Court banned the DISK affiliated union in the leather sector, Deri-Is, because of this article in the trade union law. The ILO Committee on Freedom of Association has stated that this provision is extremely prejudicial to the interests of trade unions and expressed its firm hope that it will be repealed in the near future.

The law requires that, in order to become a bargaining agent, a union must represent not only 50 percent plus one of the employees at a given work site, but also 10 percent of all the workers in that particular industry. The official definition of an industrial sector is arbitrarily determined and provides for an exceptionally large number of sectors. There have been reports that the authorities have manipulated membership figures to prevent unions acquiring bargaining rights, or to remove their rights by pretending there were irregularities in the figures. As a result of this law, in a large number of sectors of economic activity workers are not covered by a collective agreement due to the disputes over the question of trade union representativeness. Accordingly, the ILO Committee on Freedom of Association has strongly urged the government to rescind this 10 percent rule and bring its legislation into line with the requirements of Conventions 87 and 98.

Unions must obtain official permission to hold meetings or rallies and must allow police to attend their conventions and record the proceedings. The Ankara public prosecutor's office initiated two separate court cases against Turk-Is in 1995, charging that two demonstrations held by Turk-Is in Ankara that year to protest the deadlock in collective bargaining negotiations were illegal. In the first case, the public prosecutor demanded prison terms for the Turk-Is officials of a minimum of 6 months. In the second case, the prosecutor's office accused Turk-Is leaders of violating the associations law when it announced its support for opposition parties before the 1995 general elections. The trials began in the Ankara court of first instance in 1996. The Turk-Is president stated in his defence that he and other officials actually calmed down the workers during the demonstrations. Judicial officials postponed the trials to a later date to hear the testimony of other Turk-is officials who were not present at the first trial. The cases are pending.

The right to strike is provided in the Constitution but is very restricted. In Turkey’s ten free trade zones (including Mersin, Antalya, the Aegean region, Trabzon, Istanbul (two), Eastern Anatolia, Mardin, and Rize), established to attract domestic and especially foreign investment and to promote exports, the right to strike is suspended for the first 10 years of operation although union organising and collective bargaining are permitted. The free trade zones employ about 7,000 workers. With regard to the free trade zones, the ILO Committee on Freedom of Association stated in 1996, "It [The Committee] calls attention to the importance it attaches to the respect of freedom of association throughout Turkish territory and urges the Government to remove in the near future these restrictions which are incompatible with the application of Conventions Nos. 87 and 98."

Lengthy and cumbersome procedures have to be followed before any strike. Solidarity strikes, general strikes, and go-slow strikes are all banned. The ILO Committee on Freedom of Association has stated that, "the excessive restrictions on the right to strike imposed on workers constitute a serious violation of the principles of freedom of association."

Strikes are banned outright in a wide range of sectors including banking; public notaries; transport; exploration, production, refining and distribution of water, gas, electricity, coal, lignite, natural gas and petroleum. In this regard, according to ILO jurisprudence occupations for which a strike could be prohibited, due to their essential nature, are those where there is existence of a clear and imminent threat to the life, personal safety or health of the whole or part of the population. Hence most of these sectors would not be included in these definitions as they cannot be considered essential.

There have been some recent improvements in Turkish labour laws, most notably with regard to engagement in political activity whereby, due to Act No. 4277 of 1997, trade unions now face almost no restrictions. In a recently promulgated tax law, if new employees choose to become union members, employers can delay for two years the payment of income taxes deducted directly from salaries and receive substantial financial assistance for one year with the cost of social security contributions (compulsory for all workers). At the same time, there remain serious shortcomings in the labour law. From 8-16 December 1997, a march by 200 people from Istanbul to Ankara was organised by the DISK trade union confederation to demand the democratisation of labour laws. On 11 December, tens of thousands of public sector workers across Turkey held work stoppages and protests over low wage rises and to call for the same rights to strike and to engage in collective bargaining as in the private sector. The unions had been offered a pay rise of 30 per cent while annual inflation was 95.8 per cent in November. The prime minister issued a decree on the day before the protest saying that those joining the protests would face legal proceedings.

At the beginning of 1998, the government submitted a draft bill on public employees’ trade unions to parliament. The draft bill did not grant the rights to bargain collectively and to strike and contained many prohibitions and restrictions. The bill only envisaged collective negotiation without any binding effect, thus only giving unions the right to discuss with employers on behalf of their members. It prohibited the right to organise and bargain collectively for civilian public servants employed in the armed forces and prison wardens.

At the beginning of March 1998 when parliament began to debate the bill, the public employees’ confederation, KESK, organised a national demonstration in Kizilay Square in Ankara in protest at the bill. On the first day of the demonstrations, the police said that the gathering was illegal and violently attacked the demonstration with water hoses, tear gas and truncheons. Thirty workers had to go to hospital. On the following day many members of the BTS transport union were arrested. Due to widespread opposition to the bill in Turkey and internationally, the government withdrew it.

The Government has the statutory power under Law 2822, governing collective bargaining, strikes, and lockouts, to suspend strikes for 60 days for reasons of national security or public health and safety. Unions may petition the Council of State to lift such a suspension. If this appeal fails, and the parties and mediators still fail to resolve the dispute, it is subject to compulsory arbitration at the end of the 60-day period. The ILO Committee of Experts on the Application of Conventions and Recommendations regards the Government's application of the law as too broad and has called on the Government to limit the application of the law and recourse to compulsory arbitration to essential services in the strict sense of the term. The Government asserts that the law does not contradict the Committee's principles.

On 17 July 1996, Turk-Is, DISK and Hak-Is launched a boycott of oil multinationals Shell, Mobil and BP. The union in the industry, Petrol-Is, said the companies were increasingly contracting out work which had been done by full-time employees in the past. Under the law, workers employed on contracts are no longer covered by collective agreements and cannot be union members, but are still counted as part of the overall workforce. Over the previous three years, the companies had transferred nearly half of their workforce onto contracts. The union in the industry can no longer meet the numeric requirements for collective bargaining. The companies put pressure on the remaining "core" personnel to leave the union, offering immediate pay rises to renounce union membership. Workers who left the union received cash handouts as well. Petrol-Is made several attempts to negotiate with the companies in good faith but the talks led nowhere.

II. Discrimination and Equal Remuneration

In 1967, Turkey ratified both ILO Convention No. 100 (1951), Equal Remuneration and ILO Convention No. 111 (1958), Discrimination (Employment and Occupation).

There is no discrimination against women in Turkish law with respect to employment, civil rights and so on. However, in practice the majority of women in Turkey remain subject to discrimination to varying degrees (as is common, of course, not just in Turkey but throughout the world). A large percentage of women employed in agriculture and in the trade, restaurant, and hotel sectors work as unpaid family help. In urban areas, the position of women has improved over the last thirty years, including in the professions, business, and the civil service, although they continue to face discrimination to varying degrees. Out of Turkey’s 151,000 managerial employees, only 11,000 are women.

The literacy rate for women is approximately 71 percent, compared to 91% for men. Traditional family values in rural areas place a greater emphasis on advanced education for sons than for daughters and many girls do not complete primary school, although most boys do.

The ILO Committee of Experts on the Application of Conventions and Ratifications has observed that the government needs to undertake measures to ensure the equal access of women to positions of responsibility in the administration. The government has reported to the ILO on various projects it is undertaking to improve women's equality in the workplace, including improvement of the databases concerning women, sexual discrimination and education.

There are reports of harassment and discrimination against members of the Kurdish population, located largely in the south-east, who publicly or politically assert their Kurdish ethnic identity. One recent example of this came in December 1997, when nine members of the executive board of the education sector union Egitim-sen were put on trial, charged with having illegal publications in their office. The publications dealt with the rights of minorities to have education in their mother tongue. They were sentenced to 16 months in prison and fined 3.7 billion Turkish lira (US $13,600) each. The sentences were suspended on condition that the "crime" not be repeated within five years.

It is not clear to what extent the serious problems with respect to trade union and other human rights in the south-east region are linked to issues regarding Kurdish identity and to what extent the mayors and employers in the south-east region are engaging in similar forms of repression to those used in other regions of Turkey as well. The municipal and general workers’ union, Belediye-Is, in Diyarbakir, has said that it is impossible to enforce any labour rights in the south-east region. Wages are paid late and unions and workers sacked and harassed for demanding their rights. Trade unionists have often been prosecuted under Article 8 of the 1991 Anti-Terror Law which provides for severe penalties against any written or spoken statement judged to be prejudicial to the integrity of the Turkish state. There are restrictions on the right to strike in areas where a state of emergency is in force.

On 12 January, 1996, Osman Kündes, the president of the Batman municipal workers' union, Belediye-Is, in south-east Turkey, and seven others were freed after being abducted on 6 February, 1995. It was reported that a secret organisation, linked to the security forces, was behind the abductions.

In the city of Diyarbakir, 25 union branch leaders and officials were arrested between July and November 1996. The authorities tried to link them to a banned Kurdish organisation called the PKK. Under emergency legislation, they could be held for 30 days (since reduced to 10) without being charged and without access to a lawyer. Torture in detention is routine. The detained unionists said they were forced to sign documents blindfolded and had no idea what they were signing. Those arrested included six trade union officials who were held incommunicado at police headquarters after being held in raids during October; Hasan Kacan, Yusuf Akgun and Gulsen Aydemir of the education union, Egitim-Sen; Davut Balikci of the finance union, Maliye-Sen and the public service confederation, KESK; Halil Cabir Karacadagli of Tes-is; and Halil Topalan of the roadworkers' union, Yol-Is. They were released with four other trade unionists without charge on 4 November after appearing in the state security court. Hasan Kacan was rearrested ten minutes after he had been freed, in connection with an incident that had taken place several years previously in his home town, which he had left over seven years ago.

The leader of the municipal workers' union in Diyarbakir, Vesir Perisan, was arrested at home on 2 July 1996 and charged under the 1991 Anti-Terror Act. A police informer alleged that the PKK had helped him to be elected as union leader - although he had been the only candidate. He denied knowledge of the informer as well as any contact and sympathy for the PKK. He said he opposed all violence. His lawyers said that the security forces had no evidence to sustain their case. The authorities held security court hearings at which they said that the witness for the prosecution had not appeared. They were then able to postpone the trial and extend the detention. There were many other legal irregularities.

On 4 November 1996, in Urfa, six members of the SES union in the public health sector were detained. On the following day, three of them, including the president of the Urfa branch, Ihsan Avci were arrested and imprisoned. On 12 November, the union branch office was raided and documents were seized. On 17 November, the Governor of Urfa had the union’s branch office and the branch office of the Egitem-Sen closed down and sealed because he said that there were banned publications on the premises. The SES said that in September, the public prosecutor had filed a case against the union’s branches in Bolu and Diyarbakir because of their trade union activities. At the end of November, the Ankara State security court prosecuted nine members of the Egitim-Sen national board for issuing publications calling for free, democratic, and secular education in their mother tongue.

Halil Cabir Karacadagli, president of the Diyarbakir branch, of Tes-Is, the energy, water and gas union, in the south-east of the country, was detained and tortured at the end of 1996, when the police had tried to force him into being an informer. They blindfolded him and made him sign a statement that he was involved in the PKK. On 3 April 1997, he received a telephone call saying that he should become a police informer otherwise he would be killed.

On 22 May 1997, Haydar Kilicoglu, president of the Diyarbakir branch of the teachers’ union, Egitim-Sen, and union members Ahmed M. Altindag and Yusuf Akgun were detained, as well as several members of the Diyarbakir branch of the Human Rights Association. The union’s offices were raided. Under emergency legislation, detainees can be held for 30 days without being charged and without access to a lawyer. Torture in detention is routine during this period. Egitim-Sen said its officials and members were constantly harassed and detained.

At the beginning of February 1998, 20 public employees, including Emrullah Cin, a member of the executive committee of KESK, and officials of the SES and Egitim-Sen unions in Diyarbakir, Adiyaman, Siirt and Agri were banished to various cities. The offices of the SES and Egitim-Sen in Urfa had been closed down by the authorities in November 1997. KESK said that the authorities were trying to stop any union activities taking place in these cities.

The ILO Committee of Experts on the Application of Conventions and Recommendations has complained that the Turkish government’s reporting on discrimination gives no details on activities to promote equality of opportunity and treatment for groups such as ethnic minorities.

In the area of discrimination against the disabled, little legislation exists to safeguard their rights or regarding accessibility for the disabled.

While the law is satisfactory, discrimination against women in practice persists in Turkey, although there has been some improvement over the last thirty years. There are reports of discrimination against members of the Kurdish population who publicly or politically assert their ethnic identity and it is virtually impossible to enforce any labour rights in the south-east region of the country.

III. Child Labour

Turkey completed the domestic procedures for ratification of ILO Convention No. 138 (1973), the Minimum Age Convention, in mid-1998. Turkey is presently completing the formalities necessary for ILO registration of the ratification.

The Constitution and labour laws prohibit employment of children under the age of 15, although children aged 13 and 14 may engage in light, part-time work if continuing their studies. Under a law passed in August 1997, education is compulsory up to the age of 14. The age for entrance to apprenticeship was recently increased to 15 in an amendment of the law concerning Apprenticeship and Occupational Training.

However, these laws are only enforced in the formal industrial sector. In practice many children work in the informal sector, for example in car repair or handicrafts. The bulk of child labour occurs in rural areas. According to a 1996 study conducted by the Turk-Is child workers bureau, for every 100 workers, 32 are between the ages of 6 and 19. Children employed at work sites and homes constitute 5 percent of the total working population and are mostly employed in the metal, shoe, woodworking, and agricultural sectors. The study reported that 56 percent of these workers are uninsured. It added that the total number of working young people between the ages of 12 and 19 is 3.5 million and that 45 percent of them are under the age of 16.

The Government has recognised the serious problem of child labour and has been working with the ILO International Programme on the Elimination of Child Labour (IPEC), to discover its dimensions and to determine solutions. The aforementioned law promulgated in 1997 to increase the length of compulsory education should contribute considerably to the elimination of child labour. The Ministry of Labour, the Ankara municipality, the Turk-Is trade union confederation and the Turkish Employers Association are jointly involved in an IPEC project to solve the problems of working children. A labelling system is scheduled for implementation in 1998. In co-operation with IPEC, the Hak-Is trade union has been carrying out work to tackle the situation of the estimated 10,000 child labourers in the Sakarya province. The DISK and KESK trade union centres are also active in tackling child labour.

IV. Forced Labour

Turkey ratified ILO Convention No. 105 (1957), the Abolition of Forced Labour Convention in 1961. Turkey completed the domestic procedures for ratification of ILO Convention No. 29 (1930), the Forced Labour Convention, in 1998 and is presently completing the formalities necessary for ILO registration of the ratification.

There are no reports of forced labour in Turkey.

CONCLUSIONS

• All seven of the ILO Conventions on core labour standards have been ratified by Turkey, or are in the final stages of ratification. However, in practice there remain significant violations of core labour standards in Turkey.

• The violation of trade union rights in Turkey has an impact on the ability of unions to engage in free collective bargaining and, in consequence, affects the costs of Turkey’s exports, particularly in Turkey’s free trade zones where the right to strike is non-existent. The government of Turkey has refused to respond adequately to sustained criticism by the International Labour Conference of the ILO concerning the lack of effective penalties against employers for anti-union discrimination, restrictions on the right to strike, illegitimate requirements for forming a trade union and preventing enterprise-based unions and restrictions on the right to collective bargaining in the public sector. All these areas require urgent attention and changes to both law and practice.

• The government of Turkey should undertake increased efforts to overcome discrimination against women.

• The government of Turkey should ensure that there is no ethnic discrimination and that labour legislation is fully respected throughout the country, requiring a comprehensive reform of local administration, especially in the south-east of Turkey where at present there are major difficulties with the enforcement of labour rights.

• The serious problem of child labour in Turkey indicates the need for the government to step up its efforts to channel more resources into the provision of universal, high-quality education and into improved labour inspections to ensure children are in school.

• In line with the commitments accepted by Turkey at the Singapore WTO Ministerial Meeting and its obligations as a member of the ILO, the government of Turkey should therefore provide reports to the WTO and the ILO on its legislative changes and implementation programmes with regard to freedom of association, discrimination and child labour.

• The WTO should draw to the attention of the Turkish authorities the commitments they undertook to observe core labour standards at the Singapore and Geneva WTO Ministerial Conferences. The WTO should request the ILO to intensify its work with the government of Turkey in these areas and provide a report to the WTO General Council on the occasion of the next trade policy review.

References

DISK Institute of Research, The Turkish Working Class in the 1990s: Social and Economic Indicators, 1992.

Education International (EI), Barometer on Human and Trade Union Rights in the Education Sector, 1998.

International Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mine and General Workers' Unions (ICEM), various press releases and other information.

ICFTU, Annual Survey of Violations of Trade Union Rights, 1996 to 1998.

International Labour Organisation (ILO), Reports of the Committee on Freedom of Association, 1993-98.

ILO, Reports of the Committee of Experts on the Application of Conventions and Recommendations, editions from 1993 to 1998.

International Metalworkers’ Federation (IMF), various press releases and other information.

International Transport Workers’ Federation (ITF), The Violation of Trade Union Rights in Turkey, 1995.

Turkish Confederation of Workers Unions (Turk-Is), Confederation of Turkish Real Trade Unions (Hak-Is), Confederation of Progressive Trade Unions (DISK) and Confederation of Public Workers' Union (KESK), various reports to the ICFTU.

US Department of State, Report on Human Rights Practices for 1997, 1998.