New mood among
Turkish workers
TURKEY to the time when it faced competition from a more militant confederation, the DISK. With the suppression of articles 141 and 142 of the penal code, the trials of DISK militants planned under the military dictatorship have been abandoned. There is thus a possibility that this confederation, which at its height organized some workers, will be reformed. This raises the
SILENCED for years under the military dictatorship, Turkish workers were paralyzed by anti-strike laws and had to be satisfied with the hope that the union leaderships could negotiate good collective agreements on their behalf.
However, following on the renewal of its activity in spring
1989, the Turkish working class has slowly but surely adopted a new approach.*
FUAT ORÇUN
S
TARTING in 1984 real wages began to fall, and after the
1989 local elections hundreds of thousands of became involved in struggles. This has won them wage rises far beyond those proposed by the bosses and the government, and has also thrown the union leaderships, which had become nothing more than transmission belts for repression and despair, into disarray. Sometimes original methods of struggle have been used to get round the anti-strike legislation and attract the attention and support of public opinion; allowing beards to grow; collective medical visits; hunger strikes, work slowdowns, meal boycotts and so on.
The union bureaucracy has found itself caught between the pressure of the rank- and-file and that of the government, which was not ready to listen to its pleas.
However, the leaders need both rank-and- file support to justify their existence and the benevolence of the government to strike at the end of 1990 marked a new step forward. However, the
Gulf war was the occasion for further restrictive legislation. More than 300 strikes have been banned by the government. The signing of the collective agreement affecting 600,000 public sector workers has been postponed manoeuvering and dithering of the union leaderships have cost the workers months.
In any case, from mid-June 1991, hundreds of thousands of workers resumed passive resistance outside the framework of the union structures.
The union bureaucracy has thus found itself obliged to support the workers' wage demands at the negotiating table, but has at the same time been dealing in secret with the bosses. The more far- sighted employers have granted significant wage increases, which have allowed the union bureaucracy to save face, but, at the same time, have engaged in massive sackings without any reaction from the unions. It was president Özal himself who revealed the existence of this tacit agreement when he commented on a wage dispute. Thus, in the textile sector, 40,000 workers - a third of the workforce - have been fired without any protest from Teksif, the union led by Svket Yilmaz, the president of the main union confederation, Türk-Is. This attempt by the bosses to put pressure on the workers through mass unemployment (there is no unemployment insurance in Turkey) had already been seen at work during the miners' strike, when threatened to close the mines. However at the time this threat was not carried out, in the face of the fierce resistance of the miners.
### Big job losses
Over the past year, some 300,000 workers have lost their jobs, without any replacement, even at lower wages. Thus the threat of sacking is very real. Despite this the workers do not seem inclined to impossibly low and memories of recent victories remain living. union leaderships, which could act as the means of compromise and retreat, now lack all credibility. Actions usually start with a rank-and-file initiative. Thus as far as the collective negotiations for the 600,000 public sector workers are concerned; 374,000 have stated that they are in conflict; 78,000 have decided to strike; 134,000 are on strike at the time of writing; and negotiations are underway for 34,000. Some 155,000 workers deprived of the right to strike, but have decided to engage in solidarity strikes. The main slogans in the current workers' struggles are: "resignation of the government", and "Where is the Türk-Is?"
The legitimacy of the Türk-Is leadership is at an all-time low, even compared of the restoration of DISK's property, a considerable sum, notably in buildings confiscated by the state, which would give it the means of resuming its activities. Despite opposition from TürkIs, the European Union Confederation (CES) has called on the Turkish government to hand back DISK's property. DISK president Bastürk has resigned as a deputy in order to get the legal procedures started and demand the reopening of DISK.
The Türk-Is recently took part in the General Assembly of the International Labour Organization (ILO) with agreement of the bosses and the government. Frightened by the prospect of competition, the Türk-Is tried to block the ILO's protests against Turkey's reactionary labour legislation. This insists, notably, that for a collective agreement to be reached, the union must organize 10% of the workers in the branch nationally and 51% in the enterprise concerned. Such rules would be an obstacle to an effective relaunching of DISK. The Türk-Is also asked the ILO not to insist on employment of workers sacked by the military dictatorship (mostly former DISK members), who have gained from the courts the right to rejoin their enterprises, a right which is being denied by the gov-
La million workers have been involved in industrial actions this year. In the first two weeks of June 500,000 workers were involved. Even if this is not revolutionary, it at least represents a kind of renaissance. However, despite the wage struggles, there are yet to be any significant solidarity actions against the sackings.
Social democracy silent
Meanwhile, despite this labour upsurge, the social democracy, caught up in its internal quarrels, has remained totally silent. The creation of a political force to the left of the social democracy is more than ever necessary. Various discussions and attempts have been made in this direction between the remnants of the various parts of the formerly extremely strong far left of the 1970s. The only tangible result so far of their prolonged discussions behind closed doors has been the reorganization and transformation of the main Maoist and pro-Soviet currents.
The first attempt at regroupment took * This article is the second of two; the first, dealing with the crisis of bourgeois politics in 199. te as wiren in Line 21, 19.0. 21, July 22 1 9 1991. It was written on June 21, 1991
International Viewpoint #212 • September 16, 1991
TURKEY / EASTERN EUROPE
Cumhuriyet, 16.6.1990 place in 1985-86, bringing together essentially "independent" socialists and the main pro-Chinese group, the former Worker-Peasant Party (TIKP). The pro-Soviet current, which had not yet caught up with Gorbachevism, refused to join in for sectarian reasons.
The relations between the Maoists and everyone else are strained since in the past, the TIKP alienated everyone with its adoption of the Chinese "Three Worlds" line' and notably by its appeal for a government of national unity against terrorism and the "Soviet threat" on the eve of the coup d'etat. The remnants of the TIKP in the end founded their own party, the Socialist Party (SP).
This current has, however, succeeded in winning new credibility on the left, above all through its dynamic newspaper, Ikibine Degru ("Towards 2000") which undertakes virulent campaigns of denunciation of the regime, notably on the Kurdish question.
New left unity initiative
Subsequently, the SP split, with some of its older cadres launching a new left unity initiative. This time they were joined by the pro-Muscovites of the United Communist Party (TBKP), a fusion between the former CP (TKP), and the Workers Party (TIP), now passionately proGorbachev. A new organization, the Socialist Unity Party (SBP), was founded with the support of some "independent" personalities.
Both the SP and SBP have remained limited to their traditional bases of support, and have not attempted any further regroupment initiatives. However, while the former has been following a more radical line than in the 1970s, the second has shifted to the right, onto a liberal line.
The remnants of the revolutionary currents of the 1970s have remained outside 20 even if justified, have not been repot ons. these developments. Their suspicions,
TAN tarianism. These currents have undergone an important identity crisis with the retreat of the social movements, since their main impetus came from their prac tical work in the mass movement, above all among the youth. Their extremely eclectic ideological references have also been shaken by the events both in Eastern Europe and the USSR, and in China and
Despite the revival of working class activity around wage demands, the far left is stagnant. The dominant tendency is towards sectarian introspection against a ideological disarray, despite more open discussions than in the past on programmatic questions. As a rule unity in action is rejected. Given the fact that all the groups are weak, the continuing sectarianism holds out little hope for a healthy recomposition.
The situation is unlikely to change without some fundamental shift in attitudes or the appearance of a new force. The left is bogged down in sterile and tedious discussions, marked by indecision, impressionism, suspicion and a refusal to address the concrete questions advantage, the existence of hundreds of experienced cadres seems to work more
The force that may be able to cut this gordian knot, and break out of the dead ends of the old groups is the youth, amongst whom increased interest in politics and a definite radicalization has been apparent in the past two or three years. * 1. The "Three Worlds Theory" launched by the Chinese leadership in 1977 held that the decisive struggle for the workers and peoples of the world was that claimed that the Third World countries were the leading force in this struggle. In pursuit of this battle it was necessary to seek allies in the "second world" (Western Europe, Canada and Japan) who could be won over even by pressure from the right. The aim of this theory was to justify the new line taken by the Chinese
T HESE strains did not take the
form of an anti-EC mood among the electorate as a whole; opinion polls continued to show large majoritics favourable to the EC and to closer relations with it. On the other hand, amongst the political and policy-making clites, there were signs of increasing alarm over the prospects for the future. This alarm derived from the fact that they were becoming aware of the formidable resistance within the EC itself to really decisive moves towards their countries' effective integration into the economic and political orders of the West. And coupled with this was a growing realization of the enormous domestic difficulties of carrying through the social transition to a
We will now turn to the choices which confronted the European Community over its relations with the three Northern Tier East European states in 1991. These choices were posed most sharply in two fields; that of opening the EC to East Central European goods and labour; and that of offering these states a clear EC commitment to eventual membership of the
Preferential treatment
The immediate difficulties faced by Poland and Hungary in exporting to the EC were in large measure lifted by the EC's decision to grant GSP (the Generalized System of Preferences) to them from the start of 1990. This meant a major liberalization of trade barriers, the removal of most quotas along with voluntary restraint by Poland and Hungary in sensitive areas such as agricultural products, steel, coal and textiles. The same GSP arrangement was extended to the Czech and Slovak Republic in October 1990.
Despite GSP rights, these states still faced the possibility of the anti-dumping procedure of the EC being used against their exports, but this was rarely used dur-
On the other hand, negotiations about a permanent trade regime within the frame(now renamed "European Accords") were long deadlocked because of EC resistance to the divisive removal of its barriers. By April 1991, the three East Central European states were expressing their concern and anxiety about this. The whole issue was raised at the European Council of heads of state and government on April 10, but the deadlock in negotiations was
The main sticking points on trade were agricultural goods, steel and textiles. During the first phase of negotiations, the EC had insisted upon a ten year transition period for the phasing out of these barriers.3 The three countries concerned responded by saying that these were precisely the fields where they could hope to gain a significant market share.4