The often-used excuse of “acting in accordance with legislation in Turkey”
should not be automatically accepted. As illustrated above, even though
objections against unions’ competence are legal, in practice they are used
as anti-union measures. In his 2013 book examining hundreds of examples
from the textile, metal and petrochemical sectors in Turkey, lawyer and Chief
Editor of Çalışma ve Toplum Dergisi (Work and Society Journal in Turkey),
Murat Özveri shows that collective labour agreements are signed in merely
27% of workplaces where unions received a competency certificate. This
is despite the fact that decisions in the objection procedure mostly favour
unions.78 As the average amount of time for the resolution of an employer
objection to competency case is 424 days, there is ample time for conditions
of unionisation to change or be altered by employers themselves through
methods such as dismissals and harassment of union members. This
explains why unions are often unable to sign collective labour agreements
even though they win these cases.
The aforementioned examples, and the decisions and reports of international
organisations and international courts show that the legislation that
regulates the right to freedom of association and its implementation in
Turkey complies neither with the international legal norms, more foremost
with ILO Conventions. Instead of complying with the national framework,
which prevents unionisation, European companies should be expected to
comply with the norms of organisations such as ILO, which they refer to in
their documents of responsibility.
We believe that actors, who want to develop good practices in Turkey,
should examine international reports that portray workers’ rights violations
in Turkey and take into consideration their warnings, criticisms and
suggestions, and the above-mentioned cases. European actors should not
embrace this continuous unnamed State of Emergency, which is the main
cause of rights violations.
78 Özveri, Murat. Türkiye’de Toplu İş Sözleşmesi Yetki Sistemi ve Sendikasızlaştırma (1963-2009). [The System of Collective
Bargaining Competence in Turkey and de-Unionisation] Ankara University Faculty of Political Sciences Center for Social
Policy Research, 2013.
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C O L L E C T I V E R I G H T S O F W O R K E R S U N D E R T U R K E Y ’ S C O N T I N U O U S S TAT E O F E M E R G E N C Y
T R A D E U N I O N R I G H T S I N E U R O P E A N A N D E U R O P E A N - A F F I L I AT E D E N T E R P R I S E S
SUMMARY ON THE GENERAL
SITUATION OF WORKERS’
RIGHTS AND VIOLATIONS IN
THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC
Since the Covid-19 pandemic started to affect Turkey in March 2020, the
situation of the workers have worsened and rights violations increased.
Undoubtedly, the primary problem area has been the right to work. There is
data showing the rate of unemployment has actually increased significantly,
though official statistics have yet to demonstrate this fact due to an
inadequacy of variables.
The April 2020 Household Labour Force Survey published by the Turkish
Statistical Institute (TurkStat) covers the effect of the Covid-19 pandemic in
the most intense period (March-April-May 2020). According to TurkStat, the
unemployment rate was 12.8 per cent with a 0.2 percentage point decrease.
The number of unemployed in Turkey decreased by 427,000 persons in
April 2020 compared to the same period last year, numbering 3.77 million.
Turkstat data for September 2020 conveys a similar picture, indicating
Covid-19 did not significantly affect unemployment rates in Turkey. According
to the September 2020 data, unemployment was at 12.7 per cent with a 0.1
percentage decrease, and the number of unemployed people was 4.16 million
with a decrease of 550,000 compared to the same period last year.
However, TurkStat data has been met with widespread distrust in the
public. The July and December 2020 reports of DİSK-AR, which processes
unemployment data with alternative definitions and variables and generating
series, put the “Broadly Defined Number of Unemployed” at 9.756 million
(28.7 %) in April 2020, and at 9.47 million, (26,4%) in September 2020. This
category however does not include the employment losses of the workers
who receive short-time working allowance and unpaid leave allowance. To
cover the broader effect of Covid-19, DİSK-AR created a category for people
SUMMARY ON THE GENERAL SITUATION OF WORKERS’ RIGHTS AND VIOLATIONS IN THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC
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