The condition of labour and democracy under the state of emergency in Turkey

Mehmet Erman Erol  - Research Fellow, Ordu University, Turkey

Since the announcement of the state of emergency, workers’ protests across Turkey have been confronted with intensified police repression, detention, and arbitrary actions by employers  that rely on the current ‘securitised’ atmosphere.  Furthermore, the government has introduced regulations on labour relations via statutory decrees which have nothing to do with the underlying reasons behind the state of emergency.  For example, decree No. 678 issued on 22 November means that strikes in public transportation in metropolitan municipalities and the banking sector can be ‘postponed’ by the government, if they are deemed threatening to ‘general health’ and ‘national security’ and, in the banking sector, if they are threatening ‘economic and financial stability’. This shows how workers’ rights are being subordinated to profitability and financial accumulation imperatives in the banking sector via the force of the state of emergency.

Moreover, the term ‘postponement’ is dubious because it really means the cancellation of the strike. Under the current legislation, the strike can be postponed for 60 days, but is not automatically permitted again after that period.  For this to happen, the administrative jurisdiction needs to inhibit or cancel the government’s decision; otherwise, postponement means indefinite cancellation.  We also have to note that just before decree 678 was issued there was a significant strike by İzmir Metropolitan Municipality public transport workers which lasted for 8 days (8-16 November) and involved 340 workers. The AKP government did not lose any time in preventing such a thing happening again and did not hesitate to do so using its state of emergency powers.

The ban on strikes in metropolitan municipality public transport services and the banking sector was first imposed by union legislation of the military dictatorship of the 1980s and was kept in new legislation introduced by the AKP in 2012. The Constitutional Court found this to be against constitutional rights in 2014 and lifted the ban.  Now, however, as mentioned earlier, the very same court has decided not to audit governmental decrees issued under the state of emergency.  This means the Constitutional Court is effectively allowing the AKP to make regulations against its previous verdicts in a situation where there are now no legal channels to reverse decisions like this.

There have also been important developments in economic policy since the failed coup attempt, with detrimental effects on labour. The already fragile economy was showing signs of serious stagnation and contraction following the coup.  The Turkish Lira has constantly lost value and hit record lows since then and this has been combined with ratings cuts from credit rating agencies. Official unemployment increased to 11.3 per cent and there was a sharp decline in industrial production. Finally, it was revealed that the Turkish economy contracted for the first time since 2009, in Q3 of 2016.

One of the early responses of the AKP government to these developments was to create a Sovereign Wealth Fund in order to fund the ‘big projects’ of the government; the reality was that Turkey – having current account and budget deficits – had no material basis to create such a fund which would otherwise inescapably entail transfers from labour to capital in various ways (such as revenues drawn from privatisation and the Unemployment Insurance Fund). The Sovereign Wealth Fund will also operate without parliamentary scrutiny and audits by the Turkish Court of Accounts.  Another measure has been to introduce a new compulsory private pension system for wage earners, which paves the way for privatisation in the pension system. Government officials argue that this will help increase low-level savings in the economy; however, the reason why savings are low is because wages have been stagnant.  Many workers increasingly rely on debt to compensate stagnant wages (the household debt to disposable income ratio increased to over 50 per cent in 2014, from 7.5 per cent in 2003). In the wake of the coup and against a backdrop of decreasing demand, the government has loosened constraints on borrowing for households and extended repayment periods for credit cards and consumer loans, thus encouraging further financialisation and greater indebtedness. More recently, the Economic Coordination Council declared new measures in order to remove barriers to accumulation which were welcomed by business.

In general, these changes to economic policy have not been made through governmental decrees.  Yet the government has been able to make them because the general authoritarian atmosphere serves to reduce societal, political and legal challenges. Management of the economy was highly insulated from democratic pressures and interventions even before the state of emergency thanks to the technocratic-authoritarian restructuring of the early 2000s. However, the state of emergency further strengthened this de-democratised structure and functions to limit opposition to this economic restructuring.

Overall, then, the picture for labour and democracy in Turkey since July is bleak. Workers’ and unions’ rights are being curtailed, whilst under the cover of the state of emergency the government is regressively restructuring the economy, with the burden being placed upon workers.  It is highly uncertain about what will happen beyond 20 January, but what is clear so far is that the experience of democratic forces in Turkish society under the state of emergency has proved to be very painful indeed.