380

 WORKING CLASS FORMATION IN TURKEY, 1946-1962

ABSTRACT
Title: Working Class Formation in Turkey, 1946-1962
This study explores the everyday experiences and changing meanings workers
attached to their living and working conditions in Turkey between the end of the Second
World War and the early 1960s. A primary target of this dissertation is to explore the politics
and ideologies of class as important elements of the historical process from big cities and
weaving mills to national domains of social regulation, labor law and trade union policy. The
working class appears to have been an active force and also a point of contention during the
period which witnessed the dislocation of many producers from agrarian economy to
industrial work in urban centers and with the visible expansion of wage labor.
One of the inspirations of this study is specified as the conception of everydayness as
an effort to question large structural generalizations and recover specificity. This outlook
guided the discussion on the local and quotidian contexts such as the housing conditions in
big cities and the new leisure pursuits of working people in which the possibilities of class
solidarity were created. In a similar vein, the changing regimes of industrial discipline and its
impact on working class identity and culture in specific industries and individual workplaces
are discussed in order to recover the diversity of workers’ experiences, on the one hand, and
to detect elements of resistance and collective action, on the other. The study is concluded by
the discussion of the rich terrain of conflict between the state and workers’ associations as
well as among the latter on the boundaries of class, changing meanings of labor and the role
of the associational activity.
iv
ÖZET
Baslık: Türkiye’de Đsçi Sınıfı Olusumu, 1946-1962
Bu çalısma Đkinci Dünya Savası’nın bitiminden 1960’lı yıllara uzanan dönemde
isçilerin gündelik hayat deneyimlerini ve çalısma ve yasam kosullarını anlamlandırma
biçimlerindeki değisimi incelemektedir. Çalısmanın baslıca amaçlarından biri isçi sınıfının
büyük sehirler ve tekstil isyerlerinden is hayatını düzenleyen mevzuat ve sendikal siyasete
kadar genis bir alanda tarihsel sürecin önemli bir unsuru haline geldiğini göstermektir. Birçok
üreticinin tarımsal ekonomiden büyük kentlerdeki sanayi islerine doğru kaymasına ve ücretli
emek formunun yayılmasına tanıklık eden dönem içerisinde isçi sınıfı hem faal bir güç hem
de farklı aktörler arasındaki çatısmaların bir konusu haline gelmistir.
Bu çalısma yapısalcı genellemeleri sorgulamak ve özgül tarihsel bağlamları tekrar
görünür kılmak amacıyla gündelik hayat kavramsallastırmasına basvuruyor. Bu bakıs
açısından hareketle çalısma, isçilerin büyük sehirlerdeki barınma kosulları ve bos zaman
faaliyetleri gibi ayrıksı bir sınıf kimliğinin ve dayanısma örüntülerinin ortaya çıkısını
mümkün kılan yerel ve gündelik bağlamlara yoğunlasıyor. Benzer bir biçimde değisen
endüstriyel disiplin rejimleri ve bunların sınıf kültürü ve kimliği üzerindeki etkileri, bir
yandan isçilerin deneyimlerindeki çesitliliği ortaya çıkarmak, diğer yandan da direnis ve
kolektif eylem imkânlarını tespit etmek amacıyla tartısılıyor. Çalısma, sınıf tanımının sınırları,
emeğin değisen anlamları ve sendikaların rolü üzerine devlet ve isçi birlikleri arasındaki farklı
fikirlerin ve çatısmaların tartısılmasıyla sonuçlanıyor.

vi
PUBLICATIONS
• Neoliberalizmin Gerçek 100’ü, with Hayri Kozanoğlu and Nurullah Gür (Đstanbul:
Đletisim Yayınları, 2008).
• “1960’larda Dünyada ve Türkiye’de Ekonomik ve Sosyal Göstergeler,” in Sokak
Güzeldir: 68’de Ne Oldu, ed. Nadire Mater (Đstanbul: Metis Yayınları, 2009).
• “Đkinci Dünya Savası'nda Türkiye: Tarih, Devlet ve Siyaset,” Mesele, no. 5 (May
2007).
• “Zaptetmek: Polisin Elestirel Teorisi,” Mesele, no. 1 (January 2007).
• “1930’larda Öğretmenlik Mesleği,” Toplumsal Tarih, vol. 20, no. 215 (May 2004).
• “1930’lu Yıllarda Öğretmenlerin Meslek Birlikleri”, The Graduate Journal of
Historical Studies in Turkey, no. 1 (2003). Available at
http://www.ata.boun.edu.tr/grad/0issuduz/muallimler.pdf
• “Ahmet Rıza,” with Atilla Lök, Modern Türkiye’de Siyasi Dusunce (Tanzimat ve
Cumhuriyet’in Birikimi), vol. 1, (Đstanbul: Đletisim Yayınları, 2001).
vii
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I would like to thank many people for helping me during my doctoral work. I am
grateful to my advisor, Nadir Özbek, without whose support and patience I could never have
written this dissertation. I want to express my deep gratitude to my committee members, Zafer
Toprak, Sevket Pamuk, Mehmet Ö. Alkan and Cengiz Kırlı for their valuable suggestions and
comments. I also have to thank Kathryn Kranzler who edited the text in a short time span.
I am indebted to the faculty members of the department I work as a research assistant
for their tolerance and support they showed me during this study. I thank all the staff of the
Boğaziçi Library, Ankara National Library, Đstanbul Beyazıt Library, and the Prime Ministry
Republican Archives who were always kind and helped me in finding the resources in this
study.
I would like to thank my friends, Ahmet Bekmen, Foti Benlisoy, Stefo Benlisoy, Đsmet
Akça, Hakan Koçak, who patiently listened to me for hours, read several chapters of my
dissertation and shared their comments and knowledge with me. I thank Doğan Çetinkaya for
sharing his library and Ecehan Balta who not only shared her house during my long visits to
National Archives and National Library in Ankara, but also made those visits joyful.
Numerous other friends supported me during my study, and to them I acknowledge my
sincere gratitude. Among these, I would mention Atilla, Görkem, Fatos, Bağıs, Elif, Gökhan,
Derya, Süreyya, Evren, Eylem, Ece, Sule, Burak, Yetkin and Murat.
Last but not least, I would like to thank my family for their support and understanding
that they always have for me. My gratitude for their encouragement is beyond any expression.
viii
CONTENTS
CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION……………………………………………………………...1
CHAPTER 2: WORKING CLASS AND THE CITY………………………………………..21
Urbanization and the Housing Problem……………………………………………....25
Housing Policy for Workers………………………………………………………….32
Housing Policy under the DP Rule…………………………………………………...44
Some Aspects of Everyday Life in the Working Class Districts…………………..…55
The Meaning of Home for Workers………………………………………………….72
Conclusion……………………………………………………………………………81
CHAPTER 3: WORKING CLASS LEISURE……………………………………………….83
Cinema………………………………………………………………………………..88
Football………………………………………………………………………………105
The Coffeehouse…………………………………………………………………….127
Concluding Remarks………………………………………………………………...145
CHAPTER 4: THE ORGANIZATION OF PRODUCTION, MODES OF CONTROL AND
THE WORKERS’ RESPONSE: THE EXAMPLE OF TEXTILE INDUSTRY..........…….148
The Development of the Textile Industry……………………..…………………….149
The Labor Force….…………………………………………………….....................153
Organizing the Production: Labor Discipline and Scientific
Management in Mills….………………………………………………………..171
Mahmutpasa Weavers: Working in Small-Scale Production………………………..184
Scientific Management in Mensucat Santral and the Workers’ Response………….200
Conclusion…………………………………………………………………………...226
CHAPTER 5: LAW, LABOR PROCESS AND THE WORKING CLASS
EXPERIENCE………………………………………………………………………………228
Inner Regulations……………………………………………………………………233
Labor Inspection…………………………………………………………………….244
Collective Labor Disputes and Conciliation/Arbitration Mechanism………………257
Conclusion…………………………………………………………………………..283
CHAPTER 6: WORKING CLASS LANGUAGE, IDENTITY AND POLITICS………....286
Language of Class: Transformation of the Concept…………………………………287
Working Class Collective Action: Strikes…………………………………………..296
Institutions and Ideological Influences……………………………………………...304
Institutionalization of Trade Unions and Working Class Politics…………………..313
ix
Conclusion ……………………………………………………………………….…328
CHAPTER 7: CONCLUSION……………………………………………………………...332
BIBLIOGRAPHY…………………………………………………………………………..339
1
CHAPTER 1
INTRODUCTION
The history of the transformation of modern Turkey usually is written in terms of the
problems and deficiencies encountered in the transition of political and socioeconomic
structures: community to society, authoritarianism to democracy, workshop to factory,
peasantry to proletariat. Burdened with the ascendancy of the structural-functionalist theory of
the modernization paradigm, modern Turkish history appears to be a narrative of
unaccomplished promises and continuing abnormalities.
A primary target of this thesis is to explore the politics and ideologies of class as
important elements of the historical process from big cities and weaving mills to national
domains of social regulation, labor law and trade union policy between 1946 and 1962. The
working class appears to have been an active force and also a point of contention during the
period which witnessed the dislocation of many producers from agrarian economy to
industrial work in urban centers and with the visible expansion of wage labor. This process
shaped not only the emergent labor movement, but also attracted the interest and concern of
social reformers, social scientists and politicians who investigated, discussed and expressed
opinion on this sense of predicament. Merged with these questions was the issue of the need
of manufacturing a stable and productive labor force, the absence of which had been
perceived to be undermining the efforts to build an industrial economy since the early years of
statist industrialization in the 1930s. Within this historical context, class was a determining
2
element in the politics of work, defining how workers organized and regarded their everyday
experiences in the workplace, shop-floor cultures and resistances, and the meanings they
assigned to work and to the social identity of class. Most particularly in the large cities, class
also shaped the urban space and its politics, representing the problems associated with the
sheltering conditions of working class families and with their new leisure habits which were
not always approved by the urban elites and social reformers.
Such an endeavor requires a shift in the perspective of writing labor history in Turkey,
which has been wedged in the narrative strictures and structures. A predominant premise of
the labor history literature in Turkey is one that sees the working class as relatively
inconsequential in the economic, social and political transformations of the country. The
reasoning behind that conclusion is simple and familiar to all students of modern Turkish
history: first, the notion that the state granted labor rights and freedoms without a protracted
struggle from below; and second, the emergent working class prior to the 1960s, vulnerable
under the limited character of the capitalist relations of production and repressive and
paternalist state policies, could not develop a distinct culture and consciousness of its own.
Underpinning such claims is a teleological model which outlines the progressive and unilinear
advancement of various levels of class formation as shaped by the movement starting from
the expansion of market relations and proceeding towards the organization of working class
politics. Turkish labor historiography has trapped itself in narratives that strive to account for
the divergence of the Turkish model from the universal model of working class formation.
Abundant examples of this perspective could be cited illustrating both
contemporaneous and edited accounts. For example, Yüksel Akkaya examines the sketchy
and immature capitalist relations in order to come to terms with weak labor organizations in
3
Turkey before 1960.1 In an informative essay on the development of trade union democracy
during the 1960-80 period, Mehmet Beseli concludes that the granting of political rights by
the state prior to the political struggle of workers is the most important reason for “the limited
role of the union movement in democratic developments.”2 In a similar vein, Günseli Berik
and Cihan Bilginsoy argue that “the labor movement did not play an active role in the
political and economic transformations of the country.” The authors attribute the recognition
of a number of workers’ rights after the late 1940s to the ruling parties’ desire to tame and
harness labor and control it as an electoral bloc. They argue that the characteristics of
industrialization strategies pursued by Turkey in combination with the particularities of
Turkish history explain the divergence from the classical model of the working class
formation based on the Western European experience.3
Such arguments are particularly commonplace in the analyses of the period covering
the years between the end of the Second World War and the early 1960s. In his influential
study on the relationship between the state and the bourgeoisie, Çağlar Keyder suggests that
“it is the historical underdevelopment of the working class – both as an economic and as a
political force – which invites an interpretation privileging the interaction between the
bourgeoisie and the bureaucracy.” Class struggle, according to this line of argument, was not
as yet the mobilizing element in social transformation. The right to unionization, collective
bargaining and strikes obtained by workers as well as the widened domain of social security
1 Yüksel Akkaya, “ Çukurova’da Sendikacılık ve Đsçi Eylemleri, 1923-1960,” Kebikeç, no. 5 (1997).
2 Mehmet Beseli, “1960-1980 Döneminde Sendikacılık Hareketleri Đçinde Demokrasi Kavramının Gelisimi,” in
Türkiye’de Sendikacılık Hareketleri Đçinde Demokrasi Kavramının Gelisimi, ed. Alpaslan Isıklı (Ankara: Kalkan
Matbaacılık, 2002), p. 237.
3 Günseli Berik and Cihan Bilginsoy, “The Labor Movement in Turkey: Labor Pains, Maturity, Metamorphosis”
in The Social History of Labor in the Middle East, ed. Ellis Jay Goldberg (Boulder: Westview Press, 1996), p.
37.
4
during the early 1960s emerged as entitlements handed out to workers in accordance with the
requirements of the new model of capital accumulation based on inward-oriented import
substitution.4
Some labor historians tend to neglect or at best overlook the 1950s in their narratives
of working class formation in Turkey for they see no significant labor struggles during the
period when the right to strike and other collective rights of the workers were denied.5 Taking
these exemplary studies together, the working class in Turkey appears as a passive recipient
of state policies, lacking a consciousness of its own, circumvented by the late development of
capitalist relations, and thus only in the half-way of its own formation.6
The present study does not simply aim to reverse this argument and claim that the
working class was always present there as a self-conscious political agent and whatever social
rights introduced in the modern Turkish history were earned by the struggles of the working
class movements themselves. But rather it intends to analyze the processes of class formation
which occurs in different forms and with different contents due to the impact of both
“objective” conditions that are not defined by it and a set of complex contingent and cultural
factors. The concept of class formation adopted in this study is not teleological. Rather it is
based on the assumption that processes of class formation are never complete and can be
reversed. It permits the identification of tendencies and counter tendencies. In this
4 Çağlar Keyder, State and Class in Turkey (London: Verso, 1987), p. 149.
5 See M. Sehmus Güzel, Türkiye’de Đsçi Hareketi, 1908-1984 (Đstanbul: Kaynak Yayınları, 1996); Yıldırım Koç,
“Đsçi Hakları ve Sendikacılık,” 11. Tez, no. 5 (February 1987). For a critical review of the literature on labor
during the Democrat Party era, see Hakan Koçak, “50’leri Đsçi Sınıfı Olusumunun Kritik Bir Uğrağı Olarak
Yeniden Okumak,” Çalısma ve Toplum, no. 18 (2008).
6 The arguments of discontinuity in working class formation in Turkey is discussed in Özgür Gökmen, “The
State of Labour in Turkey, 1918-1938,” Mitteilungsblatt des Instituts für soziale Bewegungen, no. 33 (2005).
5
understanding, as Jürgen Kocka remarks, “classes are always in the process of becoming and
disappearing, of evolution and devolution.”7
Under certain conditions those who hold a common position in the production process
may become aware and conscious of what they share. On this basis, they may develop a
common social identity, a certain degree of internal cohesion, common experiences and
dispositions, common aspirations, interests and loyalties, “something like a common
consciousness as a class.” Considered in this way, the working class ceases to be a mere
category and develops the characteristics of a group. “The contrast between workers and
capitalists becomes a source of tension that is felt and experienced by those concerned.
Whether class in this sense came into existence or not and in which way depends on many
cultural factors as well as economic, social and political ones that need to be studied
empirically.”8 Whether and to what extent a working class in that sense emerged, should be
studied with respect to places of work and residence, the social origins, family structure, the
cultures and life styles, etc., of the group involved.
Yet, still the question remains there. A powerful trend among labor histories,
therefore, has been to focus predominantly on the emergence of working class consciousness.
In the case of left-wing writers of labor history there is evidence of a long standing
preoccupation with the question of why the working class in Turkey lacked this
consciousness. 9 Part of the answer lies in the perception of the concept of consciousness. It
seems that the concept of consciousness is regarded in these studies in its Lukacsian or
7 Jürgen Kocka, “Problems of Working-Class Formation in Germany: The Early Years, 1800-1875,” in Working-
Class Formation, eds. Ira Katznelson and Aristide R. Zolberg (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1986), p.
283.
8 Ibid., p. 282.
9
Touraj Atabaki and Gavin D. Brockett, “Ottoman and Republican Turkish Labour History: An Introduction,”
International Review of Social History, no. 54, Supplement 17 (2009), p. 6.
6
Second International form. According to Lukacs, the proletariat is either fully conscious
(abscribed consciousness) of its real conditions or it is trapped in the reified world of
appearances. The proletariat is at one or the other of these extremes.10
This dissertation aims to transcend this question by centering the discussion on the
category of everydayness, which is defined by Harry Harootunian as “the minimal unity that
provides its own principle of historical temporality that easily challenges the practice of
history-writing as we know it.”11 This dissertation focuses on the quotidian and local contexts
in which the possibilities are created for class politics and resistance on the one hand, and
conformity and acquiescence on the other.
In the years between the two world wars, everyday life became an object of reflection
and investigation in the context of late capitalism of Euro-America, which was characterized
by such recognizable developments as rapid modernization and urbanization, the growth of
the mass media and consumption, and the “colonization” of everyday by state and capital.12
Earlier thinkers like Lukacs and Heidegger had presented the everyday as simply a negative
category: as the site of dullness and banality, ordinary and trivial repetition. For such early
observers, alienation and colonization that steals the voice of individuals defined the
everydayness. However, Walter Benjamin had a far different conception of everyday, by
10 Stedman Jones raises the question of how the proletariat passes from one to the other one of these poles for
Lukacs. For him, the answer is that Lukacs remains trapped within the mechanical and fatalistic Marxism of the
Second International. This is because, according to Lukacs, for the emergence of the true proletarian
consciousness "the final, cataclysmic economic collapse of capitalism" is needed. “The active and practical side
of class consciousness, its true essence, can only become visible in its authentic form when the historical process
imperiously requires it to come into force, i.e. when an acute crisis in the economy drives it to action. At other
times it remains theoretical and latent, corresponding to the latent and permanent crisis of capitalism.” See
Gareth Stedman Jones, “The Marxism of the Early Lukacs,” in Western Marxism: A Critical Reader (London:
Verso, 1977), p. 42.
11 Harry Harootunian, “Shadowing History: National Narratives and the Persistence of the Everyday,” Cultural
Studies 18, no. 2/3 (March/May 2004), p. 181.
12 Kristin Ross, Fast Cars, Clean Bodies: Decolonization and the Reordering of French Culture (Cambridge:
MIT Press, 1995), p. 4.
7
which he meant the place of “actualizing.” According to Benjamin, actualizing the historical
present implied “putting into practice a political intervention … rather than merely the space
for getting through one day to the next by resorting to tactics of survival that masquerade as
forms of resistance. In this sense, the idea of tactics of resistance is simply another name for
everyday routines.”13 For him the category of everydayness also offered a different
historiography in order to “extract from it lost and forgotten promises of the past and
possibilities of the future”.14
In a similar vein, Henri Lefebvre saw in the everyday life the emergence of new
emancipatory possibilities at the same time as these were circumvented in other ways. For
Lefebvre, everyday certainly consisted of a sequence of regular, unvarying repetition.
Everyday life contained largely of unconscious actions and performances. In Lefebvre’s
words, “many men, and even people in general, do not know their own lives very well, or
know them adequately.”15 But in this very triviality and baselessness lay the contrary
dynamics: in the poverty of routine lay the potential for creative energy and politics. After all,
people engage in politics not because of abstract ideological principles, but simply because
they want to change their lives. For Lefebvre, then the everyday, even in its most degraded
forms, withholds the potential of its own transformation. To unveil this potential of the
everyday, “the dialectical nature of everyday,” Lefebvre urges us an interpretive reading and
analysis of documents and works (literary, cinematic etc.) for evidence that the consciousness
13 Harry Harootunian, “In the Tiger’s Lair: Socialist Everydayness Enters Post-Mao China,” Postcolonial
Studies, vol. 3, no. 3 (2000).
14 Harry Harootunian, History’s Disquiet: Modernity, Cultural Practice, and the Question of Everyday Life (New
York: Columbia University Press, 2000), p. 70.
15 Henri Lefebvre, The Critique of Everyday Life (London: Verso, 1992), p. 94.
8
of alienation is born, however indirectly, and that an effort towards “disalienation” no matter
how oblique and obscure, has begun.16
Thus the concept of everyday life poses radical and inventive challenges to the
teleological narratives of class. This dissertation adopts the concept in order to distance itself
from the model that seeks to outline the progressive advancement of class formation shaped
fundamentally by some economic and social structures, and approach a more nuanced,
culturally aware presentation of the lives of ordinary working people. A basic theme implied
throughout the dissertation is that it is the small catastrophes and small victories in everyday
life that lastingly influence workers’ lives and affect their self-perception as a distinct social
and political community. It is also such small experiences through which workers assert
themselves against the often hostile world surrounding them.
In the last three decades everyday life has become the object of intense
historiographical investments. Alltagsgeschichte (the history of everyday life) has grown as
the most important German historiographical development since the 1970s. In the first
instance, following the footsteps of Thompsonian historiography, the history of everyday life
involves the marking out of a particular empirical terrain. It involves the history of work, of
housing and community life, of the family, and especially of popular cultures and leisure. All
these intended to bring “the inner world of popular experience in and out of the workplace” to
the agenda of social history. 17
Second, there is an emphasis on subjectivity and experience and on the social
production and construction of meaning. This emphasis often is theorized by the turn to
16 Ibid., p. 66. See also Michael Gardiner, The Critiques of Everyday Life (London: Routledge, 2000) for a
systematical examination of Lefebvre’s studies.
17 Geoff Eley, “Labor History, Social History, Alltagsgeschichte: Experience, Culture, and the Politics of the
Everday - A New Direction for German Social History?” Journal of Modern History, no. 61 (June 1989), p. 315
9
anthropology and ethnographic analysis to account for the varieties of human experience. 18
The special interest thus is directed towards the ambiguities and contradiction of workers’
behaviors and perceptions as they live their lives. According to Alf Ludtke, the leading
advocate of the Alltagsgeschichte approach:
Alltagsgeschichte concentrates on the forms and meanings of social practice. In
question are the ways of perceiving and acting through which people
experience and “appropriate” the conditions of their life/survival. The aim is to
show how societal demands and inducements are perceived, worked through,
as interests or needs but also as anxieties and hopes.19
This brings Alltagsgeschichte closer to the analysis of culture and cultural expressions
which are explored as “an element and medium of the active representation and construction
of experiences and social relations, and their transformation.”20 The proximity of this
perspective to the insights offered by the linguistic turn will be discussed briefly below.
Suffice to say for now that one of the most promising features of such historiography lies in
its attempt to reveal the cultural construction of societal processes as manifest in the everyday
circumstances of life.
What follows this, as the third characteristic of Alltagsgeschichte, is the search for
politics at a more basic level, conveyed by the everyday culture in and outside the workplace.
Geoff Eley comments on how this everyday culture and politics are articulated in the works of
Alltagsgeschichte historians:
The experience of everyday life, as the terrain where the abstract structures of
domination and exploitation were directly encountered, encouraged attitudes of
18 See Hans Medick, “’Missionaries in the Rowboat’? Ethnological Ways of Knowing as a Challenge to Social
History,” in The History of Everyday Life: Reconstructing Historical Experiences and Ways of Life, ed. Alf
Ludtke (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1995).
19 Quoted in Mary Nolan, “The Historikerstreit and Social History,” New German Critique, no. 44
(Spring/Summer 1988), p. 58.
20 Medick, p. 53.
10
independence and solidarity that afforded obvious political potential in a classcircumscribed
context of social value and action… In other words, the workers’
Alltag generated a culture of resistance, which, under circumstances of general
social and political crises … or during smaller local mobilizations, might acquire
fuller political meaning. Then the worlds of politics and the everyday could
converge.”21
The dynamism and contradictory character of historical change are linked with what
Engels called “the production and reproduction of real life.” “In this view,” Alf Ludtke
suggests, “reconstructions in the history of everyday life involve more than situations
recurrent in the daily struggle for survival (and momentary experiencing of workaday events).
Rather such reconstructions reveal in particular the way in which participants were –or could
become- simultaneously both the objects of history and its subjects.”22
Alltagsgeschichte attempts to deal with the repetitive quality of everyday life, with the
problems of contingency and ambivalence in human experience. Moving from the insights of
Alltagsgeschichte and of the labor process theory, Alf Ludtke manages to portray the German
worker in a different light from that which is seen in the most conventional history informed
by modernization paradigm. In his work, the average German worker was neither a hero of
class struggle, nor a powerless victim of high politics. Rather, Ludtke argues, “German
factory workers were simply out to stake their own claim in German society, to obtain or
retain as much control over their work as possible, and to have some pleasurable moments in
the brief bits of leisure time.”23
21 Eley, “Labor History, Social History, Alltagsgeschichte: Experience, Culture, and the Politics of the Everday -
A New Direction for German Social History?,” p. 324.
22 Alf Ludtke, “What is the History of Everyday Life and Who Are its Practioners?” in The History of Everyday
Life: Reconstructing Historical Experiences and Ways of Life, p. 6.
23 See Alf Ludtke, “Cash, Coffee-Breaks, Horseplay: Eigensinn and Politics among Factory Workers in Germany
circa 1900,” in Confrontation, Class Consciousness and the Labor Process, eds. Michael Hanagan and Charles
Stephenson (New York: Greenwood Press, 1986).
11
This dissertation seeks to make use of this perspective in several of its chapters.
Chapter 2 and 3 discuss the everyday lives of workers outside the workplace. Chapter 2 seeks
to understand the daily living conditions in working class districts which lacked basic urban
services like piped water and sewers while transportation services were worse, which made
walking long distances to work a central experience for most workers. However the meaning
workers attached to home differed radically from middle class contemporaries, who forcefully
emphasized physical and moral health as the ideal qualities of home. However, the primary
drive of workers in building or purchasing a squatter dwelling was to assert control over a
significant part of their lives, especially during the period when workers had limited
autonomy within the workplace. In this context, neighborhood associations provided the
primary mechanism to strengthen group solidarity and articulate the common interests for
dwellers.
Chapter 3 seeks to distinguish the cinema, football and coffeehouses as working-class
leisures. Modern social thought, from the Frankfurt School’s conception of the “culture
industry” to Jean Baudrillard’s postmodern analysis of “hyperreal and image saturated
society”, represents leisure as a manipulated way of relating to the world.24 This perspective is
not shared in this study. As Lefebvre asserts, modern capitalism provides a vast domain of
illusory reverse image through exploding leisure activities. Yet leisure cannot be separated
from work and other practices of social life which simultaneously “contain within themselves
their own spontaneous critique of the everyday.”25 This chapter aims to reveal how working
class men and women imposed their own meaning and uses upon new leisure forms in order
to transcend the routinization of everyday life. Taken together the analysis provided in these
24 Gardiner, pp. 84-85.
25 Lefebvre, p. 40.
12
chapters also aims to discredit a key dichotomy of Turkish labor history, depicted between
work and non-work which has left out the analysis of the latter from the narratives of working
class formation.
Chapter 4 seeks to distinguish the structural transformations in the regimes of factory
discipline from the meanings workers imputed on their work and labor. The repetitiveness of
production processes, which was decisive for the reproduction of the whole system, was
rendered possible in many mills by the introduction of new technology and “scientific
management techniques,” and what Lefebvre calls the transformation of “cyclical time” to
“linear time” at the point of production by conditions of punch clocks and other instruments
of domination.26 Drawing also on the insights of labor process theory,27 this chapter discusses,
the solidarities generated by particular kinds of technology and shop-floor labor organization
and shared identities created by common confrontation between industrial work experiences
in different temporalities.28
Chapter 5 deals with the development of labor law as a set of everyday practices. The
chapter employs an anthropological vision of law as a constitutive system that creates
conceptions of order and enforces on them. This chapter argues that the role of law, in our
case the labor law, is crucial for it is used as to regulate and also legitimate the indigenous
production and enforcement of the norms in the everyday functioning of the workplace. It also
26 The transformation of time and its implication for the relations at the point of production was also discussed in
Thompson’s “Time, Work and Discipline in Industrial Capitalism” which reveals that with the onset of
industrialism production is no longer a self-regulating activity subject to natural requirements of the producer,
but subsumed under the requirement that socially necessary labor time reduced to minimum. This meant that the
linear repetition and characteristic rhythmn of industrial production replaces the rhythmic character of natural
time. E. P. Thompson, “Time, Work-Discipline, and Industrial Capitalism,” Past and Present, no.38 (December
1967).
27 For a review, see Jim Kitay, “The Labour Process: Still Stuck? Still a Perspective? Still Useful?” Electronic
Journal of Organizational Theory 3, no. 1 (June 1997). Available at http://www.mngt.waikato.ac.nz/ejrot/
vol3_1/ kitay.pdf
28 Michael Hanagan and Charles Stephenson, “Introduction,” in M. Hanagan and C. Stephenson (eds.), p. 2.
13
seeks to scrutinize the ways through which legal norms and institutions produced
unpredictable consequences in terms of working class identity and consciousness as the
legislation system itself magnified the worker’s sense of himself as a worker rather than as a
citizen or the nation as a whole.
With its emphasis on the different ways of perception of everyday life and its shaping
by socio-cultural meanings, Alltagsgeschichte echoes the issues raised by linguistic turn. As a
matter of fact, the most prominent feature of working class history during the 1960s and
1970s was its concern with the “totality” of class experience and its materialist inspiration
attempting to understand all aspects of human existence in terms of their social
determinations. However, this commitment passed into crisis in the 1980s. Indeed, the last
three decades have witnessed the rise of a revisionist historiography which has drawn on the
linguistic turn to produce a new narrative about the constitution and transformation of
collective identities.29 According to the advocates of this approach, the new social history
inspired by Thompson failed to analyze properly the ways in which language crucially
intervened between social conditions and experiences, and the workers’ responses to them.30
In other words, the linguistic turn questions the purported reflective relationship between the
real world and its representations and asserts the constitutive role of language in the
construction of power relationships and human consciousness.
Many historians on the left were ready to dismiss the linguistic turn for its assumed
idealism and concealing agency.31 However, linguistic analysis has helped to decenter
29 William H. Sewell, Jr., “Toward a Post-materialist Rhetoric for Labor History,” in Rethinking Labor History,
ed. Lenard R. Berlanstein (Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1993).
30 Marc W. Steinberg, “Culturally Speaking: Finding a Commons Between Post-Structuralism and the
Thompsonian Perspective,” Social History, vol. 21, no. 2 (May 1996), p. 49.
31 See Neville Kirk, “History, Language, Ideas and Post-modernism: A Materialist View,” Social History, vol.
19, no. 2 (1994).
14
subjectivity and, as James Vernon suggests, to apprehend how language endows it with
agency by reconstructing the subject as a worker, a woman, a consumer, a socialist and so on.
Far from denying agency, linguistic analysis has proved to be helpful in placing the agency at
the center of historical study, examining how we are positioned as acting subjects. “To assert
that subjects are constrained by the discourses available to them … is not to be a linguistic
determinist. Not only are all languages multivocal, but there are conflicts and tensions
between discursive systems, so that it is always possible to play at the margins of those
languages, extending their possibilities, appropriating and subverting them in unanticipated
ways.”32
Moreover the linguistic turn also has been helpful for the rethinking of the relationship
between the ideal and the material. The orthodox Marxist treatment of the question was that
Marx simply reversed the direction of causality between them. However, more novel
interpretations of Marx argue that what Marx opposed was not simply “idealism”, but the
validity of the very distinction between the material and the ideal. Derek Sayer stresses that
“Marx’s critique is less an inversion of the subject/predicate relation than in insistence that
such predicates cannot, in the nature of things, be subjects at all. The only subjects of history,
he insists, are ‘real, living individuals’ themselves.” 33 If consciousness cannot be regarded as
a “living individual” but instead is recognized as an attribute or predicate of “real living
individuals” themselves, then the material existence of these individuals can no longer be
individualized in ways which exclude their language, identity and consciousness.34
32 James Vernon, “Who’s Afraid of the ‘Linguistic Turn’? The Politics of Social History and its Discontents,”
Social History, vol. 19, no. 1 (1994), p. 84.
33 Richard Marsden, The Nature of Capital: Marx After Foucault (London: Routledge, 1999), p. 21.
34 Derek Sayer, The Violence of Abstraction: The Analytical Foundations of Historical Materialism (Oxford:
Blackwell Publishers, 1987), p. 87.
15
Thus Sayer’s interpretation of historical materialism is completely different from the
orthodox appreciations that define class as a “purely economic” relation, and then obliges us
to seek causal connections between this economic essence of the relationship and the real
empirical forms which class identity, language, consciousness and action actually take in
history. “But”, concludes Sayer, “we can no more conclude from the undeniable fact that
there can be no social life without production, the consequence that the mode of production
therefore determines any other area of social life, than we could conclude from the equally
true proposition that there can be no social life without language, the corollary that social
structures are determined by the laws of grammar.”35 Therefore it was possible to
acknowledge the importance of discursively constructed dimensions of social relations
between historical actors. In this sense, language, symbols and cultural conventions have
provided the context within which the material and non-material circumstances of workers’
lives have been rendered meaningful.
These observations tell something of the context within which Foucault’s work was
read by historians who looked for an alternative framework for thinking about social history.
Foucault criticized Marxist approaches for tending to be overly preoccupied with defining
class at the expense of understanding the nature of the struggle and called for studying “the
mechanisms of power that function outside, below and alongside the State apparatus, on a
much more minute and everyday level.” Such mechanisms of power function as
“individualizing strategies” that recognized and constituted “the social” as the main object of
science and surveillance. Foucault’s conceptualization of “the social” as a target of policy, a
site of practice and a discursive product has inspired historians to examine critically the
creation of those discourses “concerning society, its health and sickness, its conditions of life,
35 Ibid., p. 148.
16
housing and habits, which served as the basic core of the social economy and sociology of the
nineteenth century.” 36
Foucault’s conception of the social as such has been taken as paradigmatic for a
variety of areas. So far it has been the feminist historians who have done most to show the
benefits of this conceptual repertoire. In a classical essay, Joan W. Scott offers how the
process of constructing gender (“the effect of gender”) could be used to discuss class, race,
ethnicity, or for that matter every other social process and relationships:
Gender provides a way to decode meaning and to understand the complex connections
among various forms of human interaction. When historians look for in the ways in
which the concept of gender legitimizes and construct social relationships, they develop
insight into the reciprocal nature of gender and society and into the particular and
contextually specific ways in which politics constructs gender and gender constructs
politics.37
In a similar vein, Kathleen Canning’s work, with a marked emphasis “on the everyday
and on the language used by workers,” historicizes the meanings of work through a discursive
analysis. Canning defines discourse as both a textual and social relation, “a convergence of
statements, texts, signs and practices across different, even dispersed, sites (from courtrooms
to street corners).”38 For example, Canning suggests that the discourses on “morality” and
“normal family life” for workers represented “a repertoire of bourgeois concerns and also
mapped out a domain of sexuality.”39 Feminist historians also have broadened our
understanding of experience from simply denoting the realm that mediates between the
36 Michel Foucault, Power/Knowledge: Selected Interviews and Other Writings, 1972-1977 (New York:
Pantheon Books, 1977), p. 176. Quoted in Eley, “Is all the World a Text?”, p. 217
37 Joan W. Scott, “Gender: A Useful Category of Historical Analysis,” The American Historical Review, vol. 91,
no. 5 (December 1986), p. 1070.
38 Kathleen Canning, Languages of Labor and Gender: Female Factory Work in Germany, 1850-1914 (Ann
Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2002), p. 11.
39 Ibid., pp. x, 11, 100.
17
relations of production and the development of group consciousness and identity to a more
complex apprehension of the concept as “the linguistically shaped process of assigning
meaning to events as they are lived by individuals.”40
Discursive analysis particularly offers a useful method for reconstructing the everyday
experiences of workers, since archival resources rarely allow us to hear the authentic voices of
them. It is noteworthy that “the silence of archives” is purported as the most important excuse
for escaping the painstaking work of writing the social history of labor in Turkey.41 By using
the tools of discursive analysis, this thesis seeks to point to the groundlessness of this
argument.
Along with the history of everyday life, this thesis applies the linguistic analysis in
order to reveal the functioning of different and often competing discourses of working class
identity in the particular historical context of the late 1940s and 1950s, which was shaped by
urbanization, growing private sector activity, the expansion of social welfare regulations, and
the relative liberation of the political regime (the transition to multi-party system, increasing
trade union activity, etc.). However, while acknowledging the constitutive power of
discourses as very central in defining and locating experience, this thesis also assumes
Canning’s call to “untangle the relationships between discourses and experiences by exploring
the ways in which subjects mediated and transformed discourses in specific historical
settings.”42 Historical subjects mediate, resist and transform discourses in the process of
defining their identities against other subjects.
40
William H. Sewell, Jr., “Toward a Post-materialist Rhetoric for Labor History,” p.17.
41 See, for example, Ahmet Makal, “Erken Cumhuriyet Dönemi Emek Tarihi ve Tarihçiliği Üzerine Bir
Değerlendirme,” in Ameleden Đsçiye (Đstanbul: Đletisim Yayınları, 2007), p. 56.
42 Kathleen Canning, “Feminist History after the Linguistic Turn: Historicizing Discourse and Experience,”
Signs, vol. 19, no. 2 (Winter 1994),p. 373.
18
Chapter 2 discusses the discourses of social reform in Turkey which depicted the
housing shortage for working class families as constituting a new social and moral question in
the immediate aftermath of the Second World War. Along with growing anxieties about
worker unstability reflected in high turnover rates and about low productivity in key sectors of
the growing urban economy appeared fears about the working class family- the poor sanitary
conditions of homes and the overcrowded living that drew men into taverns and coffeehouses.
The narratives of danger about housing conditions of workers ranged from scholarly surveys
on poor neighborhoods to alarming representations in the newspapers of epidemics and crime
that haunted the newly established gecekondu settlements. As the transformation to the multiparty
regime after the war itself proliferated the opportunities of political participation a wide
spectrum of voices competed to shape this discursive domain.
Chapter 3 traces the different discourses on working class leisure activities. These
included politicians, bureaucrats, employers, socialists, trade union militants and particularly
leading social scientists. All these groups claimed the right to survey and observe the working
class leisure habits in order to define and control the new urban fabric. For middle class
observers, for example, cinema salons, stadiums and coffeehouses appeared to be arenas
where disorderly and ungovernable behaviors were displayed. However, it is argued, workers
effectively sought to preserve their off-work time as a distinct cultural sphere of existence.
Chapters 4 and 5 explore different discourses on the problems of the labor process and
the adaptation of the labor power to the requirements of the rationalization of production.
Among the different actors who formed the new discursive domain of work were the
prominent German social scientists, who came to Turkey after the Nazi seizure of power, and
their students. They spoke as “scientific” experts and wrote extensively in journals such as
Đktisat Fakültesi Mecmuası, Sosyal Siyaset Konferansları, Çalısma Dergisi, Đçtimai Emniyet
and Forum. They also wrote many books and booklets. Their writings reveal much about both
19
the living and working conditions of the workers, the characteristic of the labor market, and
the philosophy behind the regulation of labor in the period. On the other hand, it is asserted,
the rudimentary apparatus and ideology of regulation and reform had the effect of inciting
new forms of working class action and language riding on the call for legality and rights.
Finally, Chapter 6 explores the organization and discursive construction of worker
identity. Resisting a one-sided view of the working class identity as a discursive construction
of the ruling elite, it tries to uncover how the workers defined their place in society. The
discursive shift from the term amele, an ambiguous term which carried degrading
connotations, to isçi, which is defined with reference to one’s place in the production
relations, trade unions and the emergent labor media movement were active actors in drawing
the boundaries of class and defining class interests.
In the pursuit of uncovering the everyday lives and the changing meanings of work for
laboring people, this dissertation draws on both textual and quantitative evidence, including
the scholarly studies of social reformers, parliamentary motions, trade union reports, factory
documents from various firms in Đstanbul as well as national and trade union press which
provide invaluable information about everyday lives of working families. State archives do
not provide rich accounts for retrieving the authentic voices of workers. However, they reflect
the perceptions of the ruling elite on the life styles and living conditions of working people.
They also contain various reports on the technical and managerial problems of production as
well as some statistical data about workers.
Finally a note should be made on the terminal dates of this study. The dynamics that
were conducive for the creation of a distinct working class culture and identity started in the
immediate aftermath of the war: urbanization, the growth of mass media, the expansion of the
public sphere, the development of the labor movement, the extension of the off-work time and
20
the emergence of organized leisure, and the growing concern on the part of capital and state
for the rationalization, colonization and homogenization of everyday life.
I brought the research to an end in 1961 with the Saraçhane demonstration of at least
100,000 workers on the last day of the year, for it symbolized the formation of a working
class with distinct dispositions, identity and politics. However, the patterns described here
often will be found in the following years albeit with significant variations due to the
changing political environment in the 1960s. It would have been interesting to see how the
politics of the everyday was linked to the institutionalized political activities if the scope of
the study had been extended to cover the later periods. This question awaits the attention of
future studies.
21
CHAPTER 2
WORKING CLASS AND THE CITY
Since the nineteenth century, industrial towns and cities have always attracted the
attention of scholars and social commentators as the home of the working class people. In his
famous study on the British industrial city, Friedrich Engels provided a classical account of
the living conditions of the industrial working class in the British industrial city of
Manchester. For Engels, it was in the great cities and towns that the concentration of property
had reached its highest point and that the influence of this upon the working classes might be
more distinctly and openly observed. Moreover, it was here that the traditional way of life had
been most radically obliterated. Along with the macrostructure of the city, Engels described
the working class districts and their dwellings in detail. In this examination, his purpose was
not only to describe it literally as it was, but also to determine whether he could discover in it
some kind of corresponding microstructure. The theoretical backdrop of this inquiry was to
expose “the manner in which the need of shelter is satisfied furnishes a measure for the
manner in which all other necessities are supplied.”43 Therefore the manner in which the need
43 Friedrich Engels, The Condition of the Working Class in England (New York: Penguin Books, 1987), p. 180.
For an overview of Engels’s work and other literary products on the nineteenth century working class
settlements, see Steven Marcus, Engels, Manchester, and the Working Class (New York: Random House, 1974).
22
of shelter is satisfied would tell much about both class formation and state formation; the role
of the state with regards to markets, state-society relations, etc.
After Engels, space did not cease to be a matter of concern for working class
historians. For example, Gareth Stedman Jones, arguing against Engels’ opinion that middle
and upper classes abandoned any sense of responsibility for the poor, studied the middle-class
influence on the social geography of urban space.44 While Eric Hobsbawn drew attention to
the importance of locality on the formation of the labor market and working conditions,45
Joanna Bourke argued that construction of the class identity can not be understood without
constant reference to locality, working class home and neighborhood.46
Apart from the works of social historians, the last two decades have witnessed an
explosion of empirical research on the spatial aspects of social life. Drawing, on the one hand,
on Foucault’s treatment of the intersections between power, knowledge and space, and on the
other hand, Lefebvre’s perception of the relations between space and history, urban
sociologists and historical sociologists have directed attention to the ways in which spatial
arrangements operate as constitutive dimensions of social phenomena.47 From such
perspectives historically informed studies on the interplay of space and social action, on how
the space became as a site of struggle between social groups have proliferated in the last two
decades.
44 See Gareth Stedman Jones, Outcast London: A Study in the Relationship between Classes in the Victorian
Society (New York: Penguin Books, 1976). It is worth noting that in his 1892 preface to the English edition of
The Condition of the Working Class, Engels admitted that he had been wrong when he had predicted that the
industrial city would become the center of working class revolt, since he overlooked the growing middle class
interest in the city.
45 Eric Hobsbawm, “The Nineteenth Century London Labor Market,” in Workers: Worlds of Labor (New York:
Pantheon Books, 1984).
46 Joanna Bourke, Working-Class Culture in Britain, 1890-1960 (London: Routledge, 1994).
47 For an overview, see Edward Soja, “Writing the City Spatiality,” City, vol. 7, no. 3 (November, 2003). Soja
descibes this growing interest in space as “spatial turn”.
23
However, so far the histories of the working class in Turkey have, by and large,
ignored the spatial dimension of the working class formation.48 One initial argument of this
chapter is that any study of working class history which does not take into account the spatial
dimension of its subject matter, can not achieve a proper understanding of class formation.
This is especially true when we consider the periods of massive migration, rapid urbanization
and proletarianization. That is why this chapter is devoted to exploring the socio-spatial
dimension of working class settlements, the housing question and the residential segregation
between the working classes and the middle classes. Here the aim is to uncover and reveal the
relevance and utility of spatial analysis to obtain a better account of the formation of the
working class and its culture.
By saying that class formation is a spatial process, we mean that people build forms of
organization and identity on territorial bases, and these sites affect the forms of collective
action open to them. Spatial arrangements operate as constitutive dimensions of social
phenomena in different ways. In this study the concept of space is used, following Kevin Fox
Gotham, as “a social construction that shape social action and guides behavior.”49 It can not
be regarded as static, “a container or neutral backdrop in which action unfolds.”50 As
Chendoke points out, “space is simultaneously the material context for human activity, but
48 For exceptional pieces, see Hakan Koçak, “Türkiye’de Đsçi Sınıfı Olusumunun Sessiz Yılları: 1950’ler,”
Toplum ve Bilim, no.111 (2008). See also A. Đçduygu, Đ. Sirkeci and Đ. Aydıngül, “Türkiye’de Đçgöç ve Đçgöçün
Đsçi Hareketine Etkisi,” in Türkiye’de Đçgöç, Sorunsal Alanları ve Arastırma Yöntemleri Konferansı (Đstanbul:
Tarih Vakfı Yayınları, 1998).
49 Kevin Fox Gotham, “Toward an Understanding of Spatiality of Urban Poverty: The Urban Poor as Spatial
Actors,” International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, vol 27, no. 3 (September 2003), p.723
50 Ibid., p.724.
24
also the product of social processes, and historically-created space molds and influences these
processes.”51
This chapter focuses attention on the ordinary people of these cities; the working men
and women who faced the task of dealing with the ramifications of the broad social, political
and economic transformations that were taking place all around them. The chapter offers a
sense of what life was like for these urban residents, examining the conditions they confronted
and exploring their experiences. We consider the myriad ways in which these people
responded to the problems of urban life and analyze how these actions affected the politics
and dynamics of urban reform at the time. We also analyze the discursive domain of reform
which shaped the urban order. Our goal is to offer a deeper understanding of the links
between urban conditions, the informal politics of urban working men and women, and how
these processes put their stamp on the formation of the working class.
What sorts of houses did working class people live in? Could an average working class
family easily find housing for themselves and what was the market like? Were there
shortages? And what, in any case, did people consider to be adequate housing? How was the
housing question managed? And how was the question of the relationship between health of
the public and its housing perceived and reflected in the discourses of politicians and middleclass
reformers? Did the governments take action on the housing question? What did the
working class neighborhood look like? This chapter will seek to find answers to such
questions.
51 Quoted in Lauren Joseph, “Urban Space and Social Inequality: A Spatial Analysis of Race, Class, and
Sexuality in the City,” Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Sociological Association,
Sheraton Boston and the Boston Marriott Copley Place, Boston, MA, July 31, 2008, Available at
http://www.allacademic.com/ meta/p241492_index.html.
25
Urbanization and the Housing Problem
Explosive urban growth was a new experience for Turkey in the 1950s. The pace of
urban growth had been relatively slow before that decade. Between 1927 and 1950 the urban
population increased from 2.2 million to 3.9 million, while the rural population was
expanding from 11.4 million to 17.1 million. To emphasize the same point, it is notable that
the percentage of persons living in cities increased only one percent, from 24.2 percent to 25.2
percent, between 1927 and 1950.
Accordingly, the labor force employed in agriculture remained as high as 78 percent
by 1950 while the share of industrial workforce increased only one percent, from 9 percent to
10 percent between 1927 and 1950 and workforce in services increased from 10 to 12 percent
of the total labor force.52
However from 1950 to 1955, the urban figure rose to 28.5 percent, a 3.3 point increase
in five years, and reached 31.9 percent in 1960, another 3.4 point increase,53 which represents
the movement of around 100,000 people annually if we assume that the birth and death rates
remained about the same in city and village. The population of the four big cities rose by 75
percent and one of every 10 villagers had migrated to the cities. This massive population
movement significantly shaped the structure of the urban environment as shantytowns and
irregular housing spread during the 1950s and 1960s.
The massive population flow from villages to cities after World War II was triggered
by a series of economic, social, demographic and political factors. One significant feature of
urbanization in Turkey was that it followed the transition to commercial agriculture from
subsistence agriculture. On many occasions, the main task of Marshall Aid to Turkey was
52 Yahya Sezai Tezel, Cumhuriyet Döneminin Đktisadi Tarihi (Ankara: Yurt Yayınları, 1982), p.101.
53 SIS, Statistical Indicators, 1923-1990 (Ankara: Basbakanlık Devlet Đstatistik Enstitüsü Yayınları, 1991), p. 8.
26
defined as that of increasing the agricultural production capacity and the supply of food and
raw material to the OEEC countries. As a matter of fact, significant steps were taken after
1948 to improve the infrastructural capacity of Turkish agriculture. Especially after 1950, the
DP made agriculture the cornerstone of its policy and used a significant part of the foreign aid
to finance the importation of agricultural machinery. Consequently, tractor use increased from
1,750 in 1948 to 31,415 in 1952 and reached 44,144 by 1957.54
The mechanization of agriculture reduced the need for manpower, thus limiting the
employment opportunities in the agricultural sector. Furthermore, the Democrat Party used
American credits to build roads, which played an important role in increasing the population
mobility as well as in creating a more tightly knit internal market. However, the most
important feature of migration in Turkey was the fragmentation of rural lands.55 These trends,
when combined with the growing prospects of employment in urban areas, encouraged
migration to cities, especially among the sharecroppers who worked as laborers on other
people’s lands.
Because the economic development was concentrated in the big cities, migration was
gravitated to these established urban areas. During the period, 90 percent of all migration was
to the cities with more than 100,000 residents. Đstanbul, Đzmir and Ankara, the three largest
cities, added over a million residents during the 1950s.56 As the industrial center of Turkey,
Đstanbul led the way in urbanization. In 1945, when the flood to the city had just started,
54 Feroz Ahmad, The Turkish Experiment in Democracy, 1950-1975 (London: Westview Press, 1977), p. 135.
55 When massive migration started in the early 1950s, 62 percent of rural families owned plots of lands of less
than 5 hectares. Moreover, 12.2 percent of rural families were landless. See, Alan Duben, Kent, Aile, Tarih
(Đstanbul: Đletisim Yayınları, 2002), p.75.
56 In 1927 only Đstanbul and Đzmir had more than 100,000 residents. By 1940, Ankara, more than doubling over a
decade, was added. By 1950, Adana and Bursa; by 1960 four more cities exceeded 100,000. Michael N.
Danielson and Rusen Keles, The Politics of Rapid Urbanization (New York: Holmes & Meier, 1985), p.245,
fn.2.
27
Đstanbul had 860,000 inhabitants. In fifteen years the city’s population increased to 1.47
million in 1960.
The newcomers to the city faced an acute shortage of suitable low-cost housing. Most
private housing was too expensive for the laboring poor. Regular housing was less available
for urban newcomers. The flood of rural dwellers generated demands for low-cost housing in
the cities that could have been met either by the private market or government.
With regard to the private construction market, the rent control introduced during the
Second World War to prevent the exploitation of the war time situation was of immense
importance. While the control guaranteed rent levels to sitting tenants and provided a strong
incentive for tenants to stay put, for the contractors, it made housing construction an
unprofitable investment. After the war, rent controls continued until 1963, though in a flexible
manner and against the oppositions of the liberal circles in Đstanbul.57
On the other hand, a construction boom occurred in the course of the 1950s as the
rapidly growing urban entrepreneurial class invested more heavily in luxurious dwellings in
order to save the value of their money in an economic environment characterized by rampant
inflation. The boom in luxurious dwellings construction would essentially generate land
speculation of gigantic proportions in the growing urban centers58 which, in turn, created a
57 The Đstanbul Merchants Association took the leadership of opposition on the basis that the controls damaged
the balance between the supply and demand in the housing market. See, for instance, Munis Tekinalp, “Mesken
ve Đsyeri Buhranları,” Türkiye Đktisat Mecmuası, vol. 7, no. 76 (November 1954); “Kar Hadlerinin Tahdidiyle
Hayat Ucuzlatılamaz,” Türkiye Đktisat Mecmuası, vol. 7, no.69 (January 1954). For much of the period rent
controls were imposed on the home owners who built their dwellings before 1939, a factor which amplified the
segregation of the housing market, see Hıfzı Topuz, “Mesken Davası Kira Kanunu’nun Tadili ile Halledilebilir
mi?” Aksam, 19 October 1951. Amendments were made to the law concerning rent controls in 1945, 1953 and
1955. But the law stayed in effect until 1963.
58 The land speculation in the large cities was so massive that it became an essential source for certain urban
entrepreneurs to accumulate capital. For instance, in 1956 it was reported by the Union of Chambers of
Commerce that a square meter of land in an upper class residential section of Ankara priced at 10 liras in 1952
was sold for 20 lira in 1953, for 30 in 1954, for 100 in 1955 and for 150 in 1958. See Richard D. Robison,
“Turkey’s Agrarian Revolution and the Problem of Urbanization,” The Public Opinion Quarterly, vol. 22, no. 3
28
cruder environment for wage earners who sought suitable low-cost housing. Furthermore, the
urban regeneration programs that were run directly by the DP government boosted further the
speculative enterprises in the land market.59 In an analysis of Turkey’s pattern of economic
development between 1948 and 1960, James A. Morris wrote: “A spectacular but not
especially productive aspect of the development effort of Turkey has been the program of
reconstruction of the major cities, especially Đstanbul, with particular emphasis on aesthetic
qualities rather than function. The considerable amount of luxury housing built in recent years
is also of questionable value from the social and economic standpoints.”60
Another factor that inhibited the opportunity for wage earners to obtain suitable
housing was the rapidly increasing prices of construction materials. Bernard Wagner, who
came to Turkey as a member of a US AID mission and prepared a report on the housing
problem of Turkey in 1955, estimated that the cost of construction index must have increased
by 100 percent after 1948.61 Especially in the second half of the 1950s, when the growing
current account deficit put its stamp on import preferences, it became more arduous work to
provide the materials, a great part of which were imported goods. In 1954, 48 percent of the
(Autumn, 1958), p. 402. There was a similar rise in the price of other urban real estate. Karpat notes that some
lots in Ankara and Đstanbul that sold for 50 liras in 1949 went up to 50,000 liras in 1965. Kemal Karpat, The
Gecekondu: Rural Migration and Urbanization (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1976), p.57. One effect
of the construction boom in urban areas was the rising demand for unskilled labor. The newpapers reported that
as construction of all types reached unprecedented levels in the early 1950s, virtually anyone could find
employment. See, for instance, Aksam, 4 May 1954.
59 Adnan Menderes would later be called the Baron Haussman of Đstanbul by the architects and city planners for
his grand urban regeneration projects between 1956 and 1960. Demolition programs, boulevard constructions
and coastal fill works in his time radically changed the structure of the city. See Doğan Kuban, Đstanbul: Bir
Kent Tarihi (Đstanbul: Tarih Vakfı Yurt Yayınları, 2000), pp. 392-394.
60 James A. Morris, “Recent Problems of Economic Development in Turkey,” The Middle East Journal, vol. 14,
no. 1 (Winter, 1960). Though high prices of construction materials were observable as early as 1946. See
“Mesken Buhranı Niçin Önlenemiyor,” Cumhuriyet, 23 September 1946.
61 Bernard Wagner, “Türkiye’de Mesken Meselesi I,” Arkitekt, vol. 25, no. 284 (1956), p.78. The second part of
the report appeared in the following issue of Arkitekt.
29
cement, 28 percent of the timber and 46 percent of the reinforcing iron used by the
construction industry were being imported from abroad. The unbalanced regional distribution
of the building materials industry also stimulated the formidable prices.62
The recession of the housing construction sector during the Second World War had
encouraged the government to engage in housing production. The involvement of the state in
housing can be traced back to Orphan Chests (Eytam Sandıkları) in the Ottoman period,
which had functioned as a sort of mortgage system to provide shelter for orphans and widows.
After 1926, these chests were gathered under the Real Estate and Orphan’s Bank (Emlak ve
Eytam Bankası), which was formed with state capital, but with 45 percent of its stock held
privately. In 1946, the Orphan’s Bank was transformed to the Real Estate Credit Bank (Emlak
Kredi Bankası), with the intention of extending subsidized credit and involving in mass
housing projects in general.
The first regulation concerning the construction of public financed houses was a 1928
act which authorized the Ministry of Finance to develop housing projects for civil servants.63
This was followed by a number of regulations for providing shelter specifically for civil
servants. In 1937, a special fund was established for the same end, and in 1944, the Law on
the Housing for the Civil Servants (Memur Meskenleri Hakkında Kanun) was adopted
according to which several dwelling projects were put into action in Ankara and in some other
eastern provinces of the country.
62 “Đmar Hamleleri ve Gecekondular,” Forum, vol. 6, no. 63 (1 November 1956), p.4. In his memoirs, Hayrettin
Erkmen, the Democrat Minister of Labor between April 1953 and December 1955, and for a short period of time
in 1957, also would emphasize that the workers housing cooperatives suffered chiefly from the difficulties in
maintaining building materials. See Birsen Talay (ed.) “Hayrettin Erkmen’in Anıları,” Tarih ve Toplum, vol. 33,
no. 197 (May 2000), p.44.
63 A brief overview of the housing policy in the early republican period is provided in Kudret Emiroğlu and Süha
Ünsal, Kentlesme Yapı ve Konut: 1923-1950 Dönemi (Ankara: Đnsaat Sanayi Yayınları, 2006).
30
Over and above the initiatives to provide housing for civil servants, there were
considerable attempts to provide shelter for the workers of the State Economic Enterprises. As
public enterprises in Turkey were located dispersedly in the provinces, most of them small
towns in the countryside, the question of workers’ attachment to the workplaces had brought
onto the agenda the necessity of building residences for the working class families for whom
the industrial work was only a sideline in which they engaged temporarily when they needed
cash for some purpose. The fact that many workers continued to return seasonally to their
native villages had important implications for the development of industrial discipline. It
hindered the workers’ full commitment to factory life, promoted labor instability and
unreliability, and hampered the development of industrial skills.
Apart from that, these enterprises were expected to serve as a model for modernizing
the surrounding countryside. Workers living in wretched huts and overcrowded barracks were
seen as unfit for the “Turkish culture and character.” 64 Therefore new settlements would be
built in a proper scientific and technical sense. In many cases, such as Zonguldak and Burdur,
the housing complexes would incorporate facilities such as a school, a laundry, a communal
kitchen and recreational areas.
Housing projects for the workers of public enterprises were realized largely in the
1940s. In many Sümerbank factories, a considerable portion of the workers were living in
social dwellings by the late 1940s. As of 1945, 44 percent of the workers in the Gemlik
Artificial Silk Factory, 35 percent of workers in the Konya Ereğlisi Cloth Factory and Kayseri
Textile Corporation, 40 percent of workers in the Karabük and Hereke Woollen and Carpet
Factory, and 16 percent of the Nazilli Calico workers were living with their families in the
64 For an overview of the political and disciplinary discourse of the architectures on the issue of workers’
housing in the early republican period, see Bilge Đmamoğlu, “Workers’ Housing Projects by Seyfi Arkan in the
Zonguldak Coalfield: A Case of Modernization in Early Republican Turkey” (MA Thesis, ODTÜ Sosyal
Bilimler Enstitüsü, 2003), p. 50.
31
housing complexes constructed by Sümerbank.65 Most of these housing complexes also
included bachelor lodgings, often built as separate units built closer to the workplace. This
spatial segregation of living areas reflected a moral concern to protect the privacy and
integrity of family life.66 The total number of Sümerbank employees (workers as well as
white-collar professionals) accommodated in these lodging dwellings was 6,623 in 1947, a
figure which constituted approximately 20 percent of all Sümerbank employees.67 However,
Sümerbank administration made no attempts to provide shelter for its employees working at
the factories in big cities.
On the other hand, private manufacturers did not seem to be interested in providing
shelter for their workers. No such institutions as the “factory colonies”68 that had been
established in industrial England after the mid-nineteenth century appeared in Turkey prior to
Halil Bezmen’s cloth factory in the 1950s. As shall be discussed extensively in the third
65 Ahmet Makal, “Türkiye’nin Sanayilesme Sürecinde Đsgücü Sorunu, Sosyal Politika ve Đktisadi Devlet
Tesekkülleri: 1930’lu ve 1940’lı Yıllar,” Toplum ve Bilim, no. 92 (Spring 2002), p.52; Ahmet Ali Özeken,
“Türkiye Sanayinde Đsçiyi Barındırma Problemi,” in Đçtimai Siyaset Konferansları Đkinci Kitap (Đstanbul: ĐÜ
Đktisat Fakültesi Đçtimaiyat Enstitüsü, 1950), p. 118. Rebi Barkın’s 1949 report on the “Living and Housing
Conditions of Workers in Nazilli” records that there were 265 boarding houses in Nazilli, exclusively for civil
servants and foremen. 300-350 workers were accommodated in bachelor pavilions. The remaining 2500 had to
pay high rents to stay in the filthy and overcrowded rooms which lacked electricity and running water. See Rebi
Barkın, Nazillide Đsçilerin Geçim ve Barınma Sartları, 13 July 1949. This unpublished report is added into the
appendix of the following study: Mustafa Görkem Doğan, “Governmental Involvement in the Establishment and
Performance of Trade Unions during the Transition to Multi PartyPolitics: The Case of Workers’ Bureau of the
Republican People’s Party” ( MA Thesis, Boğaziçi University, 2003).
66 See Ali Cengizkan, “Đstanbul Silahtarağa Elektrik Santrali Yerlesme ve Konut Yasam Çevreleri,” in
Fabrika’da Barınmak, Erken Cumhuriyet Döneminde Türkiye’de Đsçi Konutları: Yasam, Mekan, Kent, ed. Ali
Cengizkan (Ankara: Arkadas Yayınları, 2009), p. 36.
67 Sümerbank, Cumhuriyet’in 25inci Yılı (Đstanbul: Kulen Basımevi, 1948), p. 54.
68 Factory colonies were established in late Victorian England by the employers who wished to carve out their
influence on the social and political life in working class neighborhood. For an overview, see Mike Sawage and
Andrew Miles, The Remaking of the British Working Class, 1840-1940 (London: Routledge, 1994), pp.61-62.
32
chapter, Bezmen built houses and amenities such as a music hall, a nursery and even a
summer camp for his workers.69
Housing Policy for Workers
The absence of a more comprehensive policy approach to the problem of low-income
housing did not appear to be a major concern before the end of the Second World War. The
acute housing shortage in the large cities was detected for the first time during the War. In
Đstanbul, Gerhard Kessler notes, a critical shortage of affordable housing emerged in 1942,
and grew more severe after the end of the war.70 He estimates that the number of people
without accommodation must have been about 50,000 people, minimum 10,000 families, in
1948, when the number of legal dwelling constructions was considered. Speculating further
on numbers, Kessler concludes that half of the “formally homeless” families lived in creaky
dwellings, overcrowded and open to sanitary and moral illnesses, while the remaining half
lived in places not covered by permit.71 In 1947, the head of the State Maritime
Administration complained that a population of nearly 2000 homeless people was living
under the bridges in destitute conditions, and their number was increasing at unprecedented
69 Gece Postası, 13 April 1956. It was reported recurrently in the media that providing dorms and social facilities
would help to create a “temperate climate” in the private workplaces since they proved to be efficient means to
keep the workers attached to their work in the public sector factories. See for example, “Đsyerlerinde Bekarlar
Đçin Pavyon Yapılmalıdır,” Gece Postası, 4 October 1955.
70 Gerhard Kessler, “Đstanbul’ da Mesken Darlığı, Mesken Sefaleti, Mesken Đnsaatı,” Arkitekt, vol. 18, no. 209-
210 (1949), p. 132.
71 It is notable that the real extent of housing shortage in Turkey was never known. Ernst Egli was worrying in
1955 that the initiatives to tackle with the problem was proceeding in the dark as the required datum were still
not provided. Ernest Egli, “Türkiye’de Mesken Problemine Dair Etüd,” Đçtimai Emniyet, vol. 1, no. 1 (January
1955), p. 49.
33
pace.72 It was estimated that annually 50,000 dwelling units needed to be produced in the
cities with populations over 10,000 in order to meet the housing shortage.73
It is worth mentioning that Kessler also observed the segregation of the neighborhoods
along class lines in the city as a recent development in Turkey.74 Duben and Behar make the
same point by noting that “the class-based differentiation of the urban fabric was a
phenomenon that had to wait for the twentieth century, and especially for the post-Second
World War period,” although the beginnings of the socio-economic stratification of
neighborhoods may be traced back to the years before and after the First World War.75 The
formation of single-class districts, though desirable as it was the natural consequence of
industrial development, was thought to be a dangerous process not only because they did not
conform to the aesthetic and social values of the established urban middle-classes, but also
because it would be harder to control the inhabitants of these unruly settlements.
Another factor that brought the housing question of the lower classes onto the political
agenda was the great transformation of the political environment in the immediate aftermath
of the Second World War. Rapid urban growth and the problems related to that attracted the
attention of governmental and party leaders, for the transition to the multi-party regime itself
increased the opportunities for political participation. Most striking was the responsiveness of
political parties to the housing shortage and poor sheltering conditions of the laboring poor in
the wake of the explosive growth of the squatter dwellings in the major cities. Housing for the
working class became a central part in debates about social problems and social policy in
72 “Köprü Üstünde ve Altında Yasayanlar,” Cumhuriyet, 3 March 1947.
73 Sadun Aren, “Mesken Đhtiyacımız ve Đktisadi Meseleleri,” in Birinci Đskan ve Sehircilik Haftası Konferansları,
(Ankara: AÜSBF Đskan ve Sehircilik Enstitüsü Yayıları No. 1: 1955), p.40.
74 Kessler, “Đstanbul’ da Mesken Darlığı, Mesken Sefaleti…”, p.131.
75 Alan Duben and Cem Behar, Đstanbul Haneleri (Đstanbul: Đletisim Yayınları, 1996), p. 31.
34
those years. Images of affluence and deprivation, status and social class, issues of segregation
and community integration were associated strongly with housing.
The ruling party incorporated the provision of low-cost housing as a social policy in its
program as early as 1947. The result of the 1946 general elections had made it clear that the
party needed to put more emphasis on the social needs of the laboring classes if it was to take
hold of a sound base in the urban centers. This issue was held seriously during the 1947
Convention of the Republican People’s Party which is commonly perceived as having been a
crucial moment at which the general trend of thought on the economic role of the state was
reflected. The Convention agreed to amend the principle of etatism in its program by limiting
its scope in favor of private capital. The RPP accepted the Democrat thesis that the state
activity should be confined to the fields in which public utility was on the front and in
operations which provided no profit for private capital.76 Yet the provision of housing for
workers was considered as an issue that only public authorities could operate on a sufficiently
large scale. Therefore two articles about social housing were added to the social policy
chapter of the new party program.
Article 90 of the program touched upon the question of social housing, manifesting
that the party was well aware of the emerging housing problem in the urban centers. Article
93 stipulated the building of houses with small gardens for workers in regions where industry
would be established in order “to bind the employees to their work and home,” and “to not
separate the peasants from their land when they were employed in factories.”77
The theme that the workers’ link to the soil should be preserved as long as possible in
order to prevent social problems that uncontrolled dispossession could cause was a much
76 Kemal Karpat, Turkey’s Politics (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1959), pp. 302-303.
77 Emiroğlu and Ünsal, p. 114.
35
repeated issue in the peasantist discourse. It is a well-documented fact that the peasantist
ideology, with its strong dislike for urbanization and proletarianization, had been quite
influential on the ruling elite of the early republican period.78
However, it is worth noting that the idea of providing small plots of agricultural land to
workers in order to tie peasant-originated workers to their work in industrial centers was also
very familiar to the social policy approach of the time. This social policy approach had been
introduced to Turkey by the German economists and sociologists who, after coming to Turkey
in the aftermath of the National Socialist seizure of power in Germany, had taken a leading
role in the establishment of the Đstanbul University Faculty of Economics and influenced
greatly the development of the idea of social policy and labor legislation. A neglected point
concerning these social scientists is that some of them, like Wilhelm Röpke and Alexander
Rüstow, were among the leading representatives of the German Economic Tradition (from
solidarism to ordo-liberalism and the theory of social market economy), a tradition which was
very occupied with a basic question: how to balance the social and economic problems of the
capitalist system in a way different from the American way.79
In a review article entitled “New Tendencies in Social Politics,” Orhan Tuna
elaborated on Wilhelm Röpke’s influential study, Gesellschaftskrisis der Gegenwart (The
social crisis of our time) for the purpose of discussing the boundaries of social policy.80
According to Röpke, social policy was about the labor question, which was in essence the
78 See, for example, Asım Karaömerlioğlu, "The People's Houses and the Cult of the Peasant in Turkey," in
Turkey Before and After Atatürk edited by Slyvia Kedourie (London: Frank and Cass, 1999).
79 For discussions on the German Economic Tradition, see Peter Koslowski, ed., The Theory of Capitalism in the
German Economic Tradition: Historism, Ordo-Liberalism, Critical Theory, Solidarism (Hiedelberg: Springer,
2000). An overview of Alexander Rüstow’s ideas is also provided in Sabri Ülgener, “Alexander Rüstow, Bir
Fikir ve Aksiyon Adamının Arkasından,” ĐÜ Đktisat Fakültesi Mecmuası, vol. 23, no. 3-4 (April- September,
1963).
80 Orhan Tuna, “Đçtimai Siyasette Yeni Temayüller,” Çalısma, no. 2 (November, 1945).
36
total dispossession of the worker. He maintained that until then social politics had reinforced
the economies of scale and proletarianization, an approach which had proved to be a fatal
mistake. The so-called social reforms (wage arrangements, reduction in the working hours,
collective contract schemes, social insurances, etc.) were no cure for the social illnesses. For
Röpke, the real solution to the labor question would be the “negation of proletarianization”:
“A new model of industrial worker should be created who provides his lunch from his garden
and dinner from the lake of Zurich,” he wrote and continued, “only when he is given a plot of
land, the proletarian can get free from his status.”81
In another article, which appeared in the Çalısma (Work) Journal, published by the
Labor Ministry, the idea of providing housing with garden was put clearly as follows:
We must admit that every working class family ought to have a house and this house
have a garden. Noticing that he has been appreciated by another estate of the society,
seeing that his needs could be satisfied within his conditions will correct the morality
of the worker in the community, and so many social problems will be solved as a
matter of course.
In the powerful industrial countries which had experienced many difficulties in this
field, there is a conviction that class struggles could be constrained by providing the
worker a home and a piece of soil.82
The question of sheltering the laboring classes stayed on the policy agenda of the
ruling party well after the 1947 Convention. Several reports discussed in the high echelons of
81 Franz Oppenheimer, who had intellectual affinity to both Rüstow and Röpke, believed that once land was
provided for the wage earner, “surplus labor would dry up, the bargaining power of those employed would rise,
wage would move upwards toward a non-explotive level. The social question would disappear. So too would
business cycle, indeed any economic volatility, which Oppenheimer interpretted as an outcome of exploitation
and under-consumption.” Dieter Haselbach, “Franz Oppenheimer’s Theory of Capitalism and of a Third Path,”
in Peter Koslowski (ed.), p. 72.
82 “Her isçi ailesinin bir evi ve bu evin bir bahçesi olması gerektiğini kabul etmek zorundayız. Baska bir zümre
tarafından buna layık görüldüğünü anlamak ve insanlık ihtiyaçlarının kendi seviyesi dahilinde tatmin edildiğini
görmek isçinin insan cemiyeti içindeki ahlakını düzeltecek ve bir çok sosyal problem kendiliğinden
çözülüverecektir. Bu sahada bizden çok daha ileride bulunan ve bundan dolayı pek çok zorluklarla karsılasarak
tecrübeler edinmis büyük endüstri memleketlerinde sınıf mücadelelerinin önüne isçiyi toprak ve ev sahibi
yapmakla geçilebileceği kanaati vardır.” Orhan Alsaç, “Đsçi Evlerine Dair,” Çalısma Dergisi, no. 2 (November
1945), p. 51
37
the party give evidence of this. It is interesting to note that these reports, in another aspect,
reflected clearly the outlook and concern of the urban established classes towards the lower
classes at this initial stage of industrial-urban growth. It is also worth noting that the
gecekondu was regarded as the home of working classes in these documents.
In his influential study on the rise of the gecekondu settlements in Turkey, Karpat
writes that the established middle-class inhabitants, who were clearly dominant in the cities
before 1950, regarded the new arrivals as “peasant invaders,” undermining the quality of life
in the cities. They associated the migrants with violence and crime, contamination and
disease, prostitution and drugs.83 Therefore, in the name of health, morality, security and
education, the middle classes claimed the right to survey and observe the working class
residences. From the early reports prepared by concerned deputies in the parliament, to those
of public health officials, such as Halit Ünal, who warned seriously about the sanitary and
moral consequences of the single-room system in the working-class dwellings, or to the
detailed studies of foreign scholars on the new low-income districts, such as Hart’s study on
the Zeytinburnu,84 there were constant attempts to define and control the new urban fabric.
What seems to be reflected in the numerous reports, articles and the news in the press
is that the concern for housing was not simply the elimination of the awful material conditions
of the poor working-class settlements, but encompassed the morality of the “dangerous
classes.” There was a concern about the ungovernability of the “invaders,” In these reports,
the fear of the moral descent of poverty into crime against property was observable.
83 Kemal Karpat, The Gecekondu: Rural Migration and Urbanization (New York: Cambridge University Press,
1976), pp.62-63.
84 One interesting thing, among many, about the Zeytinburnu survey which was conducted by Charles W. M.
Hart and his collegues in 1962 was that it was financed by the Đstanbul Chamber of Commerce and Chamber of
Industry. That is the clearest evidence of middle class interest in the constant observation and surveillance of the
working classes. See Charles W. M. Hart, Zeytinburnu Gecekondu Bölgesi (Đstanbul: Đstanbul Ticaret Odası
Yayınları, 1969).
38
Take, for instance, a 1948 report prepared and approved in the general administrative
council of the RPP, in which it was emphasized that workers’ housing was a social problem as
important as their daily wages. The report underlined that the recent statistics of the Ministry
of Labor, which recorded the number of workers in Đstanbul as 83,338, did not reflect the real
number. According to report the real number should have been around 160,000. Including the
families, it was stated, the working class population amounted to half of the total city
population. The report warned that the housing shortage might provide the basis of great
social unrest among this growing class population:
No adequate considerations are provided about the arrangements and measures to
be taken on the issue (of workers’ housing) in the cities and towns, and even in the
large industrial locations. The gecekondu housing is the most apparent instance of
this situation. No one can ensure that a community which has built shanties for
shelter on land belonging to the state or some private person will not go too far to
claim the possession of other assets.85 (Italics mine)
In this sense, the need for acting on housing was perceived not only just as a question
of the social, but linked concurrently with the moral regulation of the laboring poor.
The same problem was tackled in another report prepared by Rebi Barkın, the
Zonguldak deputy and the head of the Workers’ Bureau of the RPP. The report was presented
to the General Secretary Tevfik Fikret Sılay in 1947. In this report, Barkın documents in detail
the housing conditions of the laboring masses both in the old districts of Eyüp, Topkapı and
Üsküdar, and in the new gecekondu settlements of Beykoz, Pasabahçe and Kazlıçesme.
Because the amount that the working people could afford to spend for shelter was sharply
limited, the report wrote, they lived in extremely crowded conditions: families in cheap
single-roomed tenements and single men in bachelor houses called bekar odaları.
85 BCA Catalog no. [490.453.1867.6] “Sehir ve kasabalarda hatta büyük endüstri yerlerinde bu konu üzerine
henüz yeter derecede tertip ve tedbirler düsünülmemistir. Gecekondu evleri bunun en açık bir misalidir. Devlete
ve hatta hususi sahıslara ait arsalara barınacak bir kulübe kuran bir topluluğun baska varlıklara da sahip
olmağa kadar ileri gitmeği düsünmeyeceklerini kimse temin edemez.”
39
Overcrowded, filthy, decaying buildings, poorly heated in winter, suffocating in summer,
lacking in toilet and bathing facilities, vermin and rat infested, disease-breeding shanties – this
was the image of the poor dwellings in the cities. Moreover, such public services such as
street paving, street lighting and the installation of sewer and water lines often were not
provided to neighborhoods inhabited by the poor. The working man’s family had most often
not enough space, not enough warmth, not enough light, not enough furniture. Barkın warns
that “the workers feel themselves as they were strangers of the community”. The concern here
was that the impoverished households were coming together, each feeding off the other,
which provided an environment for social danger. Therefore, the report concludes, a formal
policy approach to the problem of low-income housing is needed urgently:
One dreadful feature of the gecekondu settlements on the social scale is as follows:
Those who build houses in these areas are not the owners of the land. These plots of
land belong either to the state or to someone else. The man who builds his home
does not consider that point. As they start building en masse, and as the state can not
respond properly because they behave en masse, they come to think that they could
achieve anything when they act together as a group. Could anyone assure that those
who have learned to lay claim to land today would not make claim to other wealth
tomorrow? Housing question is an issue that the party should place too much stress
on.86
What was seen as a moral descent from the perspective of middle-class observers was
regarded from another perspective as a manifestation of the rise of a new class which would
be the bearer of a new society. Take, for instance, a long article appeared in Nuh’un Gemisi
(Noah’s Ark), a weekly magazine published for nearly seven months by the eminent leftist
86 BCA Catalog no. [490.01/1439.08.01]. “Gecekondu mahallelerinin sosyal ölçüdeki bir fenalığı da sudur:
Burada ev yapan kimseler evlerine üzerine yaptıkları arsanın sahibi değildirler. Bu arsalar ya devlete veya
hususi sahıslara aittir. Evini çatan adam kimin toprağı üzerine ev kurduğunu düsünmemektedir. Bu ise
toplulukla basladıklarından ve toplulukla olunca devlet de buna müdahele edemediğinden kendilerinde zaruri
olarak toplulukla hareket ettikleri zaman her seyi yapabilecekleri hakkında bir kanaat uyanmaktadır. Bugün
toprağa tesahübü öğrenenlerin yarın yine toplulukla baska varlıklara da tesahüp etmeği derpis etmiyeceklerini
kim temin edebilir? Đskan meselesi partinin ehemmiyetle üzerinde durması gereken bir konudur.” For a similar
line of argument, see Rebi Barkın “Mesken Buhranı Karsısında Gecekonduların Durumu”, Hürbilek, no. 1 (17
April 1948).
40
writers of the time.87 According to the anonymous writer of this article, the gecekondu
inhabitants are not “morally corrupted, utterly ignorant, sheepish people who are unable to
organize themselves,” as they frequently were portrayed by the ruling classes, but “a new
generation of Turkish workers and laborers who had learned their lesson in the struggle for
living.” They are the “army of the dispossessed, laboring conquerors that have besieged the
Byzantium city once again after five hundred years.” This image of conquerors besieging the
outmoded city was a far cry from the image of “peasant invaders” ruining what was delicate
and select in the city life. “Who are the habitants of these squatter neighborhoods surrounding
the city? Tannery worker Ali, rubber worker Hüseyin from Malatya, weaver Mehmet,
construction worker Hüseyin from Ordu, janitor Sadettin, and poor university student
Necdet… are exemplary of those who will bring down the archaic order of the city and build a
new democratic order on this land.”
Whether expressed in a middle-class discourse of upcoming alert or in the discourse of
romantic socialism, working class housing and working class neighborhood had become a
matter of concern by 1950. As a matter of fact, the public concern for the welfare of the
working classes became almost identified with their housing conditions.
In the early 1950s, these concerns for working-class housing also were fueled by
recurrent news in the media about epidemics that spread in these settlements that had no
running water resources and proper sewage channels. In 1950, a newspaper article reported
the application of the Association of Workers of Bakery Products and Bakery Shops to the
local health authority in Đstanbul about the spread of tuberculosis among the workers of
bakery shops. The hard work in airless and lightless places and poor sheltering conditions of
87 “Gecekondular,” Nuh’un Gemisi, no. 6 (7 December 1949). Nuh’un Gemisi was published only 31 issues. The
first issue appeared on November 2, 1949. The last issue came out soon after the Democrat’s accession to power
on May 31, 1950.
41
the workers were held responsible for the infection of hundreds of workers. The Association
also complained that although a campaign had been started in 1948 by the Đstanbul Health
Department to make tests in the bakery shops, after two years hundreds of bakeries had not
been visited by the municipality doctors.88
In the same year it was reported that 30 percent of the inhabitants of Kasımpasa
suffered from tuberculosis.89 The number was certainly exaggerated, but there was a truth in
that because other testimonies indicated that tuberculosis was like a trade disease for the
tobacco workers and most of the tobacco workers in Đstanbul lived in Kasımpasa.90
It is interesting to note that that there was another implicit link detected between the
health and morality of the working class. In a long article that appeared in Çalısma Vekaleti
Dergisi (Ministry of Labor Journal) in 1953, Dr. Halit Ünal elaborated this approach with
references to the different reports of the ILO. Ünal argued that unhygienic dwelling
conditions and inadequate floor space incited the residents to go outside the home, either to
the coffeehouses or bar rooms. This, in turn would make the low-income workers spend their
money on gambling and alcohol consumption which would lead not only to moral corruption,
but also, because they would allocate less money for nutrition, would weaken the body of the
workers and leave them vulnerable to the attack of diseases. “It has been discovered that,”
Ünal noted, “this was the cause of the death of many working men in France”.91
88 Hikmet Katran, “Fırınlarda Yüzlerce Veremli Çalıstırılıyor,” Gece Postası, 16 May 1950.
89 Kemal Sülker, “Bu Sehrin Sesi,” Gece Postası, 9 December 1950.
90 See Mustafa Özçelik, 1930-1950 arasında Tütüncülerin Tarihi (Đstanbul: TÜSTAV Yayınları, 2003). At least
3000 tobacco workers were living in Kasımpasa in the early 1950s.
91 Halit Ünal, “Mesken Davası,” Çalısma Vekaleti Dergisi, vol. 1, no. 3 (1953), p.28. At the beginning of the
century high infant mortality rates and the spread of diseases were linked to crowded conditions in the working
class districts in Britain. See Andrew August, The British Working Class, 1832-1940 (Harlow: Pearson, 2007),
pp. 99-100.
42
In a similar vein Cahit Talas wrote that around 50,000 people died from tuberculosis in
Turkey annually, principally because of the poor sanitary conditions and overcrowding in the
working class homes. Those conditions drove the working class men out of home to the
coffeehouses and taverns while the children and women had to spend most of their time
outside the home. Therefore, Talas concluded, poor housing conditions may lead the working
class families to degradation and breakup.92
The question of overcrowding as a heavily debated issue was connected explicitly to
the moral condition of the working class. What really concerned the observers and scholars of
social policy was the fact that many working class families were living in one-room
dwellings, a problem which had detrimental consequences on the moral as well as on the
sanitary conditions. Official statistics indicated that 22 percent of Turkey’s urban families
lived in single-roomed dwellings.93 This proportion was higher in the poor neighborhoods of
the cities. Đbrahim Öğretmen, in his pioneering monograph on the gecekondu housing in
Ankara, wrote that more than half of the dwellings he examined were single-roomed.94 This
figure was even higher among the tenants’ houses. A later study of the Ministry of
Reconstruction and Settlement on the Gülveren gecekondu neighborhood in Ankara would
confirm his observations. According to this survey, 48.6 percent of the dwellings in Gülveren
were single-roomed.95 When Ziyaeddin Fahri Fındıkoğlu, at that time a new professor of
sociology at the Đstanbul University, conducted a research study on the tramcar workers in
92 Cahit Talas, “Mesken Davamız,” Ankara Üniversitesi SBF Dergisi, vol. 10, no. 1 (March 1955), p. 2.
93 See Robinson, p. 401.
94 Đbrahim Öğretmen, Ankarada 159 Gecekondu Hakkında Monografi (Ankara: Ajans Türk Matbaası, 1957),
p.36.
95 Đmar ve Đskan Bakanlığı, Ankara Gülveren Gecekondu Arastırması (Ankara: 1965), p.32. However, there were
significant differences between the irregular settlements. For instance, in Ankara’s Çınçınbağları gecekondu
area, only seven percent of the dwellings were singe-roomed. Đmar ve Đskan Bakanlığı, Ankara Çınçınbağları
Gecekondu Arastırması (Ankara: 1965), p.31.
43
Đstanbul, what drew his interest particularly about their housing conditions was the prevalence
of single-roomed dwellings. One third of the respondents to his survey had reported that they
lived in one room dwellings. For Fındıkoğlu, this condition posed a “serious question that
should be handled by governmental and private institutions which had always displayed
benevolence for workers.”96
That overcrowding was particularly high in the working class homes was confirmed by
a 1960 sample survey of housing conditions in 20 Turkish cities. According to the survey 33.6
percent of working class homes in Ankara were single-roomed, while the figure was 7.7
percent for civil servants and only 3 percent for self-employed professionals. In Đstanbul
around 22 percent of wage earners were living in single room dwellings compared to 5
percent of civil servants and only 1 percent of professionals. Similarly, 29 percent of working
class homes in Đzmir were single roomed while the figure was 5 percent for both public
servants and professionals.97
Ünal was well aware of the extensiveness of the single-room system and overcrowding
in the dwellings of the low income families. Overcrowding was perceived to encourage
promiscuity, especially where families took lodgers, and even incest, where large families
lived together. Thus the discourse on morality represented not only a repertoire of middle
class concerns on the living conditions of laboring classes, but also mapped out a domain of
sexuality. After he warned that “the moral defects of sleeping of husband and wife and their
children or family members of different sex or non-members of the family in the same room
is very obvious,” Ünal referred to the principles set for the number of rooms in the dwellings
96 Z. Fahri Fındıkoğlu, Đstanbul’da Sehiriçi Đnsan Nakli Meselesi ve Đstanbul’da Tramvay Đsçilerinin Đçtimai
Durumu (Đstanbul: Kenan Matbaası, 1949), p.163.
97 Devlet Đstatistik Enstitüsü, 20 Sehirde 1960 Mesken Sartları Anketi (Ankara: 1962), pp. 19, 61.
44
by the 1949 report of the UN European Economic Community.98 These principles provided
that the condition in which
1. two persons over 10 and from opposite genders sleep in the same room
2. more than two persons in a single room,
3. more than five persons in three rooms,
4. more than seven persons in four rooms,
5. more than ten persons in five rooms,
was defined as “overcrowding” (surpeuplement).
Again an explicit link between overcrowding, the single room system and morality of
the working poor was detected. This link was also causing a considerable amount of labor to
be lost.99
Housing Policy under the DP Rule
For all that public interest, documents and reports on the housing problem of the
working people, the Republican governments did not take action in an efficient manner. There
were recurrent reports in the media about the preparations made by the government to provide
affordable housing for the workers in Đstanbul during the first months of 1950. The governor,
Fahrettin Kerim Gökay touched upon the subject on many occasions in the winter of 1950.
Gökay heralded the construction of thousands of workers’ dwellings on the hillside of
Sütlüce. However Gökay’s words were not found convincing by the workers, since Gökay
98 Ünal, pp.27-28.
99 Drawing on the British example, Dave Cowan argues that the appropriate juncture for the birth of housing
policy appears when the focus on external sanitary and moral condition is linked with the dwellings of the poor.
See Dave Cowan, “Our ‘Amateurs in Blue’: Policing the Housing Crisis”, Paper Presented at the Housing
Studies Association Conference, Housing and Crime, University of Lincoln, 8-9 September 2005.
45
was “the man of government” and his promises were made just before the general elections
were held.100
The Democrat Party, which held power on 14 May 1950, took on the housing problem
immediately. In fact, there was no direct reference to the housing policy in the DP program,
but one short article, Article 88, stipulated that the necessary measures would be taken in
order to reform the nutrition, clothing and sheltering conditions of the low income citizens.101
However, one of the first statements of the Democrat Ministry of Labor, Hasan Polatkan, was
on the issue.102 Polatkan affirmed that housing for workers would be regarded as a matter of
priority by the new government. He stated that the construction of two or three roomed
dwellings was envisaged by the government. However, the government stipulated that
enterprises take the initiative in the implementation of these projects, which meant that the
state would not be involved in the financing. Polatkan’s short-term office ended in December
1950 when he was replaced by Hulusi Köymen. Yet, Polatkan’s unrealistic approach to the
problem was shared by Köymen.103
Two state banks, the Bank of the Provinces (Đller Bankası) and the Real Estate and
Credit Bank (Emlak ve Kredi Bankası), devoted a large share of their resources to housing and
to the improvement of urban services in the 1950s. From 1950 to mid-1957, the Real Estate
and Credit Bank alone invested 725 million Turkish liras in housing for 70,000 persons.104
100 “Đsçiler Konusuyor,” Nuh’un Gemisi, no.17 (22 February 1950). See also Abidin Daver, “Halka ucuz Ev
Temini,” Cumhuriyet, 23 February 1950. A couple of days later Gökay anounced to the public that 1000
dwelling units would be constructed for the low-income families immediately after the elections. “Đstanbul’da
1000 Halk Tipi Ev yapılacak,” Cumhuriyet, 26 March 1950.
101 See Demokrat Parti Tüzük ve Programı (Ankara: Doğus Matbaası, 1949).
102 “Đsçiler için Ev Temin Edilecek,” Zafer, 14 October 1950.
103 Mümtaz Faik Fenik, “Đsçileri Süratle Tatmin Etmeliyiz,” Zafer, 24 December 1950.
104 Robinson, p. 404.
46
The Bank not only provided credits to housing cooperatives, but also got involved in the
realization of mass housing projects. However, from the early days of its activities, the Bank
came under constant criticism, for the interest rates of its credits were very high and the
projects served the middle-class demands of luxurious residents.105 A well known example of
this was the Mecidiyeköy project which initially was started to provide cheap housing for
low-income groups, however, turned out to be inhabited by middle-class families.106 Ataköy
and Levent Farm, which were transferred to the Real Estate and Credit Bank from the
municipality, also came to be built as luxurious residential districts through proper credit
opportunities initially destined for social housing projects.
In 1956, a delegation from the European Economic Community Housing Committee
visited Đstanbul to prepare a report on the housing problem.107 At the end of their survey, the
delegation concluded that the activities of the institutions responsible for the provision of lowcost
housing had failed to serve that end. The dwellings constructed by the concerned
institutions were in the luxury category and could be afforded only by those whose incomes
were above the average.
Moreover, the credit grants of the Real Estate and Credit Bank were not based on a
sound policy. Because the maximum floor space for social housing, which was designed to
increase the number of units constructed with the same amount of investment, was not predetermined,
the credits destined for social housing projects were allocated to luxury
105 Esat Tekeli, “Ucuz Mesken Meselesi,” Çalısma, no. 2 (November, 1945).
106 Ayse Buğra, “The Immoral Economy of Housing in Turkey,” The International Journal of Urban and
Regional Research, vol. 22 (June 1998), p.308. See also, “Mesken Politikası ve Đsçi Sigortaları Fonları,” Forum,
vol. 5, no. 56 (1 September 1956), p.7.
107 See Zeki Sayar, “Su Mesken Davamız,” Arkitekt, vol. 25, no. 283 (1956).
47
residential projects.108 This was the case, for instance, in the apartment blocks constructed by
the Đstanbul Municipality on Atatürk Avenue. The flats were so big that they did not fit within
the norms of social housing.
The housing problem for workers was taken more seriously during the office of
Hayrettin Erkmen, the third Democrat Minister of Labor between April 1953 and December
1955. The provision of affordable housing for the workers was one of the central issues that
the DP played on during the election campaign of 1954. Especially in the large cities, the
Democrats were hoping to attract the vote of the workers by manipulating the issue. This idea
proved to be successful given that the Democratic motto, “A home for every worker” (Her
isçiye bir ev), managed to catch the interests of the workers.109 Later in his memoirs, Erkmen
would tell that he focused his energy on two issues during his term. One was on the area of
labor legislation in which he sought to make amendments to the Labor Code in order to close
the legal loopholes that the employers had manipulated. The second issue that concerned him
much was the housing needs of workers. He wrote that, in the ministry, he was personally
occupied with the financing needs and material shortages of the workers’ building
cooperatives (isçi yapı kooperatifleri).110
Building cooperatives for workers had existed well before the 1950s. In 1945, it was
reported that there were 57 housing cooperatives in Turkey some of which had been
established by the workers.111 However, to keep cooperatives running was not easy for
workers when access to financial resources was very much closed to them. The cost of living
108 Zeki Sayar, “Belediyemizin Mesken Davasını Anlayısı,” Arkitekt, vol. 24, no. 280 (1955), p. 49.
109 Vâ-Nu, “Đsçilere Ev Vaadi ve Seçim Propagandası,” Aksam, 15 April 1954.
110 Birsen Talay (ed.), “Hayrettin Erkmen’in Anıları,” vol. 33, no. 197, Tarih ve Toplum (May, 2000), p.43.
111 Tekeli, p.49.
48
indices show that 25 percent of the earnings of the families were spent on housing. The
proportion was certainly higher among the working-class families.112 This meant that they
could spare only a limited amount of money for the payments of installments.
The workers’ housing cooperatives could flourish only after 1953. A law which had
made the credits of the Social Insurance Fund available for the workers’ housing cooperatives
was enacted in 1950. However, it remained ineffective until 1953 when the Social Insurance
Fund granted loans reached a level of 12.1 million liras.113 One year later, the credits granted
by the fund more than doubled and rose to 30.6 million liras. These credits were received by
30 cooperatives with 4330 partners. Kemal Avtan provided a list of these cooperatives and
total credits used by them in 1955.114 What is interesting about the list is that it demonstrates
credit access opportunities for workers in different sectors. Indeed, more than 90 percent of
the loans were made available for the cooperatives built by the workers of public enterprises.
It seems that from the initial years of practice, the sudsidized credit channels of the Fund
were, in general, exclusively open to public sector workers who had steady jobs, who were
112 Working class families allocated forty percent of their earnings to nutrition. Bulut Altay, “Ücretler, Fiyatlar
ve Đsçilerin Durumu,” Forum, vol. 7, no. 37 (April 1, 1957). Even there were workers who spent more than half
of their income on housing. In 1957, one female worker employed as a wagon cleaner at the State Railroads told
Kemal Sülker that although she had been working 28 years in the same workplace, her monthly wage was only
110 liras. She payed 60 liras for a single room every month. Therefore she knew that she would never have the
chance of saving money to buy a cooperative house. Kemal Sülker, “Devlet Demiryollarında Çalısan Kadın
Đsçilerin Durumu,” Gece Postası, 31 October 1956.
113 “Đsçi Kooperatifleri,” Gece Postası, 15 July 1954. Up to 25 percent of the resources of the old-age insurance
fund could be used in financing the housing projects. On the other hand, it was envisaged that a credit that would
be given could not exceed the 50 percent of the cost of the construction project. Later this ratio was increased to
80 percent in 1952 and 90 percent in 1954. According to Koç, the first workers’ building cooperative financed
by the Workers’ Insurance Fund was the Kayseri Sümer Building Cooperative which was founded in 1951 by 34
partners. The construction of 53 dwelling units was started in 1952. Yıldırım Koç, “1940’lı ve 1950’li yıllarda
Đsçi ve Memur Konut Kooperatifleri,” in Türkiye Đsçi Sınıfı ve Sendikacılık Tarihi: Olaylar-Değerlendirmeler
(Ankara: Yol-Đs Sendikası Yayınları, 1996), p.224.
114 Kemal Avtan, “Türkiye’de Đsçi Yapı Kooperatifleri”, Đçtimai Emniyet, no. 2 (February 1955).
49
better organized, and more informed about the instruments that could be manipulated to get
access to state subsidized credits.115
Severe criticisms were voiced during the period, for the scope of the program was
limited to actively insured workers. Wagner wrote in 1955 that the program might reach, at its
best, only some 600,000 out of 2 million workers.116 Other criticisms of the insurance fund
workers’ housing program focused on the management and project designing of the
cooperatives. The members and directors of the cooperatives lacked the knowledge and skills
about building management and usually made bad choices when they sought contractors and
architects. Many cooperatives did not go to architects and preferred the projects which
provided stereotype plans and elevations. Consequently, all the projects resembled each other
and produced drab and monotonous buildings. 75 square meter houses with two bedrooms, a
living room, a bath and a kitchen was a typical housing unit built by the cooperatives. The
average cost of construction was calculated to be 14,000 liras in the mid-1950s.117
We do not know the exact number of worker dwellings built through workers’ housing
cooperatives during the Democrat Party era. As indicated by Keles, the total number of
dwelling units financed by the subsidized credits of the Social Insurance Fund exceeded
200,000 between 1952 and 1984, 7000 units on average per year.118 However, the number of
cooperatives and the constructed housing units is well documented for the years after 1962.119
115 Buğra notes that many inhabitants of irregular settlements still do not know about the existence of subsidized
credit opportunities. Buğra, The Immoral Economy of Housing in Turkey, p. 309.
116 Wagner, p.84
117 Ibid, p.90, 92.
118 Rusen Keles, Kentlesme Politikası (Ankara: Đmge Kitabevi, 1996), p.384.
119 See Sosyal Sigortalar Kurumu, Sosyal Sigortalar Konut Kooperatifleri ile Đlgili Bir Arastırma (Ankara:
1973); A. Đlhan Eronat, Türkiye’de Konut Sorunu ve Politikası (Ankara: AĐTĐA Yayını, 1977). An article would
be added in the 1961 Constitution regarding the public provision of housing for the poor families. The
50
It is clear that the growth of workers’ cooperatives really started to accelerate after the mid-
1960s. It is noteworthy that the 1950s witnessed the burgeoning of housing cooperatives for
middle-class families and especially for public sector employees. A list provided by Tansı
Senyapılı reveals that the number of housing cooperatives founded between 1950 and 1958 in
Ankara was 87. However it seems that only three of them were workers’ housing
cooperatives.120
The confusion about the number of housing units built also was debated in the
parliament. In 1956, RPP deputy Tevfik Ünsalan commented that, in a press statement given
in 1954, the former Democrat Minister of Labor Hayrettin Erkmen had promised the
construction of 10,000 housing units for workers every year. Ünsalan claimed that as of
December 1955, the total number of housing units financed by the insurance fund had been
1170. He asked if the minister’s promise had been made to deceive the ILO authorities,
because Erkmen’s related speech had been delivered just before he moved to Geneva for the
ILO Congress. The Minister of Labor, Mümtaz Tarhan shortly answered the question by
stating that the construction of 3000 housing units had been finished in the 1950-55 period,
while 4000 units were still in the construction process.121
By 1957, the RPP had intensified the opposition against the social and economic
policies of the Democrats. Poor housing conditions and enormous increase in rents due to
runaway inflation after 1955 were the leading issues the opposition manipulated in the big
cities. Between 1955 and 1965 rents in the three major cities of Đstanbul, Ankara and Đzmir
constitutional reference to the issue: “The state takes measures to provide hygienic housing for the poor and low
income families.” (Article 49)
120 Tansı Senyapılı, Baraka’dan Gecekondu’ya, Ankara’da Kentsel Mekanın Dönüsümü: 1923-1960
(Đstanbul: Đletisim Yayınları, 2004), Ek 20.
121 TBMM Tutanak Dergisi, term 11, vol. 2, 28 February, 1956, pp.1115-1130.
51
increased by two and a half.122 In the newspapers concerns were expressed that the low
income groups had to spend about one third of their income for rent. There appeared recurrent
news in the newspapers concerning the workers’ complaints about the high rents and the
shortage of affordable housing.123
In the general elections of 1957, the RPP would invest much in the housing problem in
its election campaign against the Democrats.124 For instance, a Republican Party poster in
Đstanbul read as follows: “A worker’s wage is just enough to pay for a room; this is how the
government cares for him.” In the public meetings organized in the big cities the housing
problem was one of the central issues elaborated in the speeches of Republican leaders.125
Also the Democrats strived to show that they were still taking the housing problem seriously.
Kemal Sülker reported on his page in Gece Postası that since the question of workers’
housing was one important issue of the elections, the DP included in its candidate list one
professional architect, Seyfi Asuroğlu, to assure the workers that the party was keeping the
issue at the top of the agenda.126 Meanwhile, the recurrent reports in the media about the
housing problems were added by implications of infractions being made in the assignment of
insurance fund credits. For instance, the influential Forum magazine wrote that the allocation
of 200,000 liras as credit from the fund to nine high income engineers was a scandalous act,
for it meant the subsidization of luxury dwellings.127
122 Metin Heper, Gecekondu Policy in Turkey (Đstanbul: Boğaziçi University Publications, 1977), p.13.
123 Gece Postası, 25 January and 1 Fabruary 1955.
124 Kemal Karpat, “The Turkish Elections of 1957,” The Western Political Quarterly, vol. 14, no. 2 (June,1961),
p.447.
125 For example, see “Dün Đllerde ve Sehrimizdeki Mitinglerde DP’ye Hücum Edildi,” Cumhuriyet, 9 October
1957.
126 Kemal Sülker, “Đsçi Adaylar Arasında Mücadele Baslıyor”, Gece Postası, 4 October 1957.
127 “Mesken Politikası ve Đsçi Sigortaları Fonları”, Forum, vol. 5, no. 56 (1 September 1956), p.7.
52
In the midst of all this, the debate between the government and the opposition party
over the number of state supported house construction for workers reappeared in 1957 during
the negotiations over the yearly budget of the Ministry of Labor. Upon the verbal question of
Tevfik Ünsalan regarding the number of finished and projected workers’ housing units,
Mümtaz Tarhan stated that the finished housing units after 1953 amounted to 8701.128
Construction dates and locations of the buildings were listed as follows:
Ankara 332 1945-1956
Đstanbul 1,019 1953-1956
Đzmir 100 1955
Bursa 195 1955-1956
Đzmit 78 1955-1956
Mersin 42 1956
Konya 81 1955
Kayseri 361 1955-1956
Adana 49 1955
Aydın 260 1956
Eskisehir 270 1956
Zonguldak 200 1956
Etibank 1,330 1956
Community
Seker 1.060 1953-1956
Community
Others 3,223
TOTAL 8701
Tarhan also explained that 111 units had one room, 951 units had 4-5 rooms, while the
rest were 2-3 room dwellings.129
However Ünsalan seemed to be unsatisfied with the answer of the minister. When he
took the floor, he convincingly argued that when the amounts of appropriations and
128 TBMM Tutanak Dergisi, term 11, session. 3, vol. 1, 1 February 1957, pp. 6-11. For Kemal Sülker’s
commentary on this parliamentary discussion, see “Đsçi Evleri Hakkında Mecliste Verilen Đzahat ve
Temenniler”, Gece Postası, 4 February 1957.
129 Ibid. p.9.
53
expenditures were regarded, it was unthinkable to assume that 1000 dwelling units had been
constructed in Đstanbul during the period. According to the numbers provided by the workers’
housing cooperatives in Đstanbul, the number of dwelling units built in this city could not
exceed 544.130 In the harsh environment of the parliament, the debate between the
parliamentarians broke up with an acrimonious exchange of words.131 In 1959 the issue was
brought to the parliament once again with a written question by Kars deputy Kemal Güven.
The Ministry of Labor Haluk Saman then presented a short written statement to the
parliament in which the total number of dwelling units financed by the ministry program was
claimed to be 10,000.132
Whatever the real numbers were, it is clear that the policy of public provision of
housing remained incapable of meeting the growing demand of affordable housing for the
laboring poor. It was especially the laboring families in the big cities that suffered most from
poor housing conditions. As noted above, a significant part of the public workers in the
Anatolian provinces already was living in social dwellings by the late 1940s. On a trip in the
Eastern part of the country in 1952, Bahir Ersoy, the chairman of the Federation of Textile
Industry Workers’ Trade Unions, was very impressed when he saw that in every city he
130 Tevfik Ünsalan announced the names of the cooperatives and the number of dwelling units built by them in
Đstanbul as folows: Association of Đstanbul Trade Unions Housing Cooperatve: 200 units, Bakırköy Sümerbank
Workers’ Housing Cooperative: 114 units, Đstanbul Dock Workers’ Housing Cooperative: 108 units, Đstanbul
Gas Workers’ Housing Cooperative: 78 units, Beykoz Housing Cooperative: 54 units. In the 1956-1957
Congress Report of RPP Đstanbul Organization, it was written that the 1954 election promise of the Democrats,
“A house for every worker”, proved to be unrealized in the face of the fact that the number of finished dwelling
units was only around 500. CHP, CHP Đstanbul Đli 1956-1957 Kongresi Raporu (Đstanbul: Refah basımevi,
1957), p.26.
131 It is noteworthy that overall number of dwelling units produced by building cooperatives in the 1946-1961
period was estimated to be 25 thousand. See TOBB, Konut Sorunu: Toplu Konut Uygulama Sonuçları ve Son
Zamanlardaki Gelismeler (Ankara: 1988), p.34.
132 TBMM Tutanak Dergisi, session 2, vol.1, 12 June 1959, p. 783.
54
visited there were housing cooperatives that had been built by workers.133 For example, in
Kayseri, the construction of 150 housing units had been finished and many more were in the
project phase. In Malatya, the cooperative was preparing to build 900 homes for the workers.
It is an acknowledged fact that labor has not played a major role in urban politics in
Turkey.134 However, the housing policy was the main urban priority of the unions in this
period. The unions generally supported government intervention in local housing and land
markets to increase the supply of housing for workers. They sought to expand the limited
housing programs initiated by the government and to increase interest in worker housing on
the part of the city government. The unions also pressed the central government to revise
cumbersome lending procedures in housing programs and increase the amount of funding
allocated per worker.135 The defense of the interests of their members sometimes led the
unions to oppose some housing and land programs developed by the government.136 Unions
also encouraged the workers to found building cooperatives.137 However, most unions were
aware that their members could not afford to pay the installments given their monthly family
incomes. For instance, a 1958 report of the Iron and Metal Workers’ Union (Maden-Đs) wrote
that the union could not start the establishment of a housing cooperative in the face of the fact
that the average cost of a cooperative dwelling unit in Đstanbul was around 20-25,000 liras and
133 Gayret, 14 February 1952. Gayret was the publishing organ of the Kayseri Textile Industry Workers’ Trade
Union.
134 Keles and Danielson, p.120.
135 Kemal Sülker, “Yapı Kooperatiflerine Üye Olanların Ev Sahibi Olması,” Gece Postası, 7 March 1953; “470
Đsçi Evi,” Gece Postası, 22 February 1953.
136 “Bu Memlekette Ciddi Bir Đsçi Meskenleri PolitikasınınTatbikini Ne Zaman Göreceğiz?” Đsçi Sesi, 22
October 1955.
137 See, for example, “Bira Đsçileri Yapı Kooperatifinin Kongresi,” Đsçi Sesi, 18 December 1954; Artun Avadar,
“Đsçilere Ev Yaptırmak Đçin,” Gece Postası, 2 September 1953; “1000 Đsçi Evi,” Đsçi Dünyası, 25 September
1953.
55
a working-class family needed a minimum income of 500 liras in order to be able to pay for
it.138
Some Aspects of Everyday Life in the Working Class Districts
This part of the chapter focuses on the working class districts which appeared to
dominate the geography of the urban spaces in the 1950s. One main concern here is the
physical formation of these districts and the social life it generated as it put its stamp on the
urban mileu. Because the period under consideration is characterized by intensive
displacements, the domestic experience of workers bears great importance. The meaning of
home for laboring men and women was much different from the middle class vision of home
discussed above.
It should be noted that in the initial years of the gecekondu growth, those settlements
were regarded as the home of the working class by observers.139 For instance, according to
Ekmel Zadil, a prominent writer on social policy and labor issues, the gecekondus grew from
the necessity of providing shelter for the worker-citizens.140 It is notable that the emphasis
here on the “worker-citizen” was made deliberately because the writer regarded the building
of squatter dwellings as a right of citizens who lacked sufficient resources to obtain proper
houses.141 Zadil harshly criticized the media coverage of the squatter dwelling as “a site of
138 Maden-Đs, 11. Büyük Kongre Faaliyet Raporu (7 Ekim 1956-15 Aralık 1957) (Đstanbul: 1957), p. 20.
139 In writing this part of the chapter, I also have in mind Korkut Boratav’s call for discussing the gecekondu
housing in terms of working class formation and culture. See Korkut Boratav, 1980’li Yıllarda Türkiye’de Sosyal
Sınıflar ve Bölüsüm (Đstanbul: Gerçek Yayınevi, 1995), pp. 107-108.
140 Ekmel Zadil, “Đstanbul’da Mesken Meseleleri ve Gecekondular,” in Đçtimai Siyaset Konferansları Đkinci Kitap
(Đstanbul: ĐÜ Đktisat Fakültesi Đçtimaiyat Enstitüsü, 1949), p. 79.
141 The term “squatter dwelling” has a double meaning in Turkey: first it refers to houses built on land which is
not owned by the constructer of the house, and second, houses built without any official consent from the
authorities, even if the land is owned by the builder. Another characteristic of the squatters is the inferiority of
56
horror and repulsion,” and of the dwellers as “cunning persons who could deceive anyone.”
He openly expressed his admiration for those who built their shelters by themselves: “A
citizen who lives under terrible conditions in the gecekondu deserves appreciation more than
the one who has occupied two-three houses at the same time while the country is suffering
from housing shortage. Even he did not receive support of the society, he wanted to save
himself by his own resources and take a part in the society. Our sympathies are always with
them.”142
It is interesting to note that Zadil saw no problem in the sanitation and security
conditions of the gecekondu settlements. In a visit to the Kazlıçesme gecekondu areas, he
observed that “the children were playing in the gardens so happily and cheerfully that one
could not help but appreciate with love the people who have created this place under very
hard conditions for the well-being of their children.” He also added that the security of the
area was provided by only four gendarmeries. “However, there was no need for the
surveillance of the official watchmen because, the area was more secure than Beyoğlu.
Everyone knows and shows respect to each other. They say that no incidences of thievery and
molestation happen here. Young working class girls told me that they felt no fear or distress
when they were returning late at night from the factories.”143 Zadil’s praise for the orderly
these houses in either construction or comfort. Because they were rapidly built, they were named gecekondu
(literally, housing built overnight). See Erol Tümertekin, Urbanization and Urban Functions in Turkey (Đstanbul:
Đstanbul Üniversitesi Yayınları, 1973), pp. 115-116.
142 “Kötü sartlar altında gecekondularda yasayan bir vatandas, bu mesken buhranında iki üç ev isgal eden bir
kimseden daha fazla takdire layıktır. Gecekondu kurucusu evsiz barksız bir serseri olmamak için, bir çatı
kurmustur; cemiyetten yardım görmediği halde, kendi imkanlariyle kendi kendini kurtarmak ve cemiyet içindeki
yerini almak istemistir; Sempatimiz daima bunlarla beraberdir.” Zadil, p.80.
143 “Bahçelerinde öyle keyifli ve neseli oynuyorlardı ki, insan, çocuklarının sıhhat, nes’e ve saadeti için büyük
mahrumiyetle buraları meydana getirenleri yeni bir sevgi ile takdir etmekten kendini alamıyordu... Emniyet
isleri dört tane jandarma tarafından temin ediliyor, halbuki böyle resmi bekçilere hiç de hacet yok zira burası
Beyoğlundan daha emin. Herkes birbirini biliyor ve sayıyor. Hırsızlık ve sarkıntılık vakalarına burada hiç
rastlanmadığını söylüyorlar. Đsçi kızlar gece geç vakit fabrikalarından hiç korkmadan ve çekinmeden
geldiklerini söylediler.” Ibid, p.83.
57
social life in these settlements, economic contribution of their inhabitants to city life, how
these positive aspects were reflected in the improvement of physical environment would be
reiterated by many of the individual studies on squatter settlements during the 1950s and
1960s.144 Zadil concluded his article by openly calling for the legalization of the
gecekondu.145
In a similar vein, Hart defines squatter settlements as a peculiar way of satisfying the
need for the shelter of the Turkish working class. However, his explanation for the prevalence
of the gecekondu is rather cultural. In the gecekondu studies, including his own, Hart states,
“it appears that Turkish people do not prefer the apartments as residents… It seems that the
root cause of the problem is the strength of the Turkish family structure and the meaning the
Turks ascribed to family privacy… For them the ideal home is a single dwelling, or a group of
houses composed of single dwellings, and a man lives here with his family and with the
families of his brothers and sisters.”146
More realistic explanations for gecekondus reflecting the dark side of squatter housing
settlements were presented by the “view from inside” of those people living there. Before
going on discussing the living conditions in the poor districts of working people it is
appropriate to produce the argument that squatter settlements as the site of working class
home.
144 It is noteworthy that this approach to squatters was in conformity with the dominant model of urban sociology
of the time. Topalov notes that in the 1950s and 1960s, the “traditional working-class neighborhood” replaced
the former description of poor urban districts as “slums” or “disorganized areas” in the works of sociologists,
anthropologists and social historians. Christian Topalov, “’Traditional Working-Class Neighborhoods’: An
Inquiry into the Emergence of a Sociological Model in the 1950s and 1960s”, OSIRIS, no. 18 (2003), pp. 231-
232.
145 In calling for the legalization of the gecekondu, Zadil was following his master, Gerhard Kessler in
“Đstanbul’da Mesken Darlığı, Mesken Sefaleti, Mesken Đnsaatı,” Arkitekt, vol. 18, no. 209-210 (1949). The
article was also published in Siyasi Đlimler Mecmuası in August 1949. Zadil was also the translator of this article
to Turkish.
146 Hart, p.86.
58
It already has been noted that due to the massive population movement and the
inadequacy of the housing policies, the structure of the urban environment was shaped
significantly as shantytowns and irregular housing spread during the 1950s and 1960s. As
early as 1948, the number of squatter dwellings was estimated to be 25-30,000. This figure
went up to 80,000 in 1953, 240,000 in 1960, and 430,000 in 1965. In the process, the
proportion of the population living in squatter houses with respect to the total population
gradually increased. The total gecekondu population was around 250,000 in 1955,
representing the 4.7 percent of the urban population. This figure rose 1.2 million and 16.4
percent, respectively, in 1960.147
A number of different estimations have been made on the share of people coming from
villages in squatter settlements. Senyapılı overviews these estimations and argues that the
studies on the gecekondu show conclusively that 80-90 percent of the total population of the
gecekondu is from rural areas.148 However, the migrants in the city had little trouble finding a
work.
Although the occupational composition of the gecekondu communities varied widely
from city to city, and even from one district to another, there remained some basic
similarities. In the Ankara Gülveren gecekondu district survey of the Ministry of Construction
and Settlement, 28.9 percent of the household heads were listed as craftsmen, 25.8 as skilled
and unskilled workers, 10 percent as public workers and 12 percent as employees of a lower
status.149 Sewell’s findings in the Aktepe gecekondu neighborhood in Ankara revealed that
147 Keles, Kentlesme Politikası, p.385.
148 Tansı Senyapılı, Gecekondu: ‘Çevre’ Đsçilerin Mekanı (Ankara: ODTÜ Mimarlık Fakültesi Yayınları, 1981),
p.23.
149 Đmar ve Đskan Bakanlığı, Ankara Gülveren Gecekondu Arastırması, p.33.
59
about one-third of Aktepe wage earners were skilled workers. 20 percent were classified as
unskilled laborers, and an equal number were in trades. Civil servants and public service
workers, including policemen, firemen, street sweepers and janitors amounted to 18 percent
while another 8 percent were vehicle drivers, several owning their own taxi cabs.150 Similarly,
Yasa found that in the gecekondu areas of Ankara skilled workers and craftsmen constituted
the largest occupational group, representing 27 percent of the household heads. Unskilled
workers and public service workers constituted another 26.5 percent. Small merchants and
low level civil servants were other large occupational groups, 17 percent and 14.5 percent,
respectively.151 By the 1970s three out of four workers in Ankara were estimated to be living
in gecekondu settlements.152
In the Đstanbul gecekondu settlements the proportion of workers was higher simply
because these settlements were industrial areas in the same time. For example in Hart’s study
in Zeytinburnu, 45 percent of family heads was listed as factory workers employed in the
surrounding workshops of Kazlıçesme, Zeytinburnu, Bakırköy and Osmaniye.153
150 Granville H. Sewell, “Squatter Settlements in Turkey: Analysis of a Social, Political and Economic Problem”
(Ph.D. Dissertation, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1964), p.91.
151 Đbrahim Yasa, Ankara’da Gecekondu Aileleri (Ankara: Sağlık ve Sosyal Yardım Bakanlığı Yayınları, 1966),
pp.123-128.
152 Cevat Geray, “Türkiye’de Konut Đhtiyacının Karsılanması,” in Türkiye’de Konut Sorunu Semineri (Đstanbul:
Đktisadi Arastırmalar Vakfı, 1981), p.32.
153 Hart, pp.66-67. In Zeytinburnu, virtually everyone could find factory work in the early 1950s. Some migrants
became workers even before they could settle properly. In some cases factory owners gave advance payments to
the newcomers who wanted to build gecekondus. Frequently, workers were allowed to use the waste tin and
other waste materials of the factories for building their housing. See Tansı Senyapılı, Baraka’dan Gecekondu’ya,
Ankara’da Kentsel Mekanın Dönüsümü: 1923-1960 (Đstanbul: Đletisim Yayınları, 2004), p.90. Zadil notes that
a factory in Kazlıçesme region helped workers build their gecekondus by selling them the necessary construction
materials at wholesale prices. The factory even granted credits to its workers for purchasing the materials. Zadil,
“Đstanbul’da Mesken Meseleleri ve Gecekondular”, p.85. Some factory owners made the necessary arrangements
with the municipality and other authorities to ease the construction process for the workers. Erhan Acar, “Đsçi
Konutu Olarak Gecekondu,” in Türkiye Birinci Sehircilik Kongresi 1. Kitap, ed. Yiğit Gülöksüz (Ankara: ODTÜ
Sehir ve Bölge Planlama Bölümü Yayınları, 1981), p. 257.
60
Tümertekin’s survey in the 200 gecekondu dwellings in the Bomonti area revealed that 200
men and 87 women dwellers were employed in the industrial plants of Bomonti.154 He also
revealed that 90 percent of the workers who were employed in industries which demanded
unskilled labor such as textiles were living in squatter houses. According to a 1962 newspaper
report, a great part of the inhabitants of Kustepe, Mecidiyeköy gecekondu area was comprised
of workers, most of whom were employed by the Đstanbul Electric Tramway, Tunnel, Bus and
Trolleybus Enterprise as drivers, ticket conductors and repairers.155
In Kasımpasa, Beykoz and Eyüp, where a high proportion of the workers lived, the
gecekondus appeared as early as 1946.156 Resat Tasal, who worked in different positions as a
practitioner of law at the Üsküdar judicial court during the 1940s, reminds that the workers of
the Beykoz Bottle Glass Factory often started small fires in the forest land around Sultan
Çayırı to open spaces suitable for building squatter settlements. In the mid-1940s the fire
incidents in the Beykoz forest land were so frequently repeated that the gendarmerie forces
could not manage to suppress the movement and arrest the offenders.157
An interesting point concerning these early studies on the occupational composition of
the gecekondu settlements is that they usually took no notice of the significance of domestic
service job for women. Because domestic workers were excluded from many of the legal
154 Erol Tümertekin, Đstanbul’da Bir Sanayi Bölgesi: Bomonti (Đstanbul: Đstanbul Üniversitesi Yayınları, 1966),
p. 32. Gecekondu construction mushroomed in Bomonti after the district was declared as an industrial zone in
1955. Before that time, the number of industrial factories in the Bomonti area was 32, including some old but
large industrial plants such as Nestle, which was founded in 1928 and the Bomonti Beer Factory, which was
founded in 1892. Enjoying their closeness to urban centers inhabiting high income consumers such as Beyoğlu
and Sisli, those industrial plants were specialised in producing goods that appealed to the preferences of the
westernized, wealthy segments of society. However, the number of industrial plants jumped to 119 in less than
ten years after 1955. In the course of the time, composition of the industries diversified from light industries,
such as textile, clothing, food and chemicals to metalwork, mechanical and rubber industries.
155 “Bir Dokun Bin Ah Đsit Gecekondudan,” Gece Postası, 21 November 1952.
156 Zadil, p.82.
157 Resat D. Tesal, Selanikten Đstanbul’a Bir Ömrün Hikayesi (Đstanbul: Đletisim Yayınları, 1998), p. 178.
61
protections afforded to other classes of worker, including the provisions of the Labor Law,
their number was uncharted. Yet the main reason for the neglect of domestic work in these
surveys was that they regarded the head of the household as the main breadwinner. However,
in many cases, the contribution of women domestic workers to the family income was higher
than that of the men workers. Tümertekin notes that many women who went out to work in
middle-class houses in Maçka, Osmanbey and Harbiye, where they did laundry, baby-sitting,
cooking and other housework, earned about 20-30 liras daily in the early 1960s. They
preferred domestic work because they found factory work more oppressive and boring, and
the industrial wages were around 20-25 percent less for women workers.158
On the other hand, it is worth noting that the gecekondu dwellers did not seem to suffer
from widespread unemployment. It was acknowledged that the unemployment rate was
difficult to determine in the gecekondu areas. Nevertheless, Yasa’s study covering the large
gecekondu areas of Ankara asserted that the rate of unemployment among family heads was
as low as 3.5 percent.159 In the Gülveren neighborhood the proportion was only 3.2.160
In the Đstanbul gecekondu areas, where the proportion of industrial workers was higher,
the unemployment rate increased during the late 1950s as a result of high displacements due
to raw material shortages in many industries. When Hart and his colleagues conducted their
survey in 1962, the unemployment rate in Zeytinburnu was close to 10 percent. However, as
Hart noted, the percentage of those actively seeking work was probably lower when those
unwilling to work were discounted from this figure.161 When Halit Kıvanç, a journalist of the
158 Tümertekin, Đstanbul’da Bir Sanayi Bölgesi: Bomonti. See also Đbrahim Yasa, “The Gecekondu Family”,
Ankara Üniversitesi Siyasal Bilgiler Fakültesi Dergisi, vol. 27, no. 3 (1973).
159 Yasa, Ankara’da Gecekondu Aileleri, p.123.
160 Đmar ve Đskan Bakanlığı, p. 33
161 Hart, p. 226.
62
Milliyet newspaper, visited the gecekondu neighborhoods in 1955, what struck him at first
sight was the abundance of young men killing time in the coffeehouses or hanging out in the
neighborhood. However, he immediately found out that those young men were not
unemployed, but worked the night shifts in the nearby factories.162
At this point, it is worth noting that the demarcations between industrial work and
various unskilled, low-status urban occupations remained very flexible. Zehra Kosova’s
memoirs bear witness to the fact that the practice of “tramping”, of moving to a different
location in order to seek work, became significantly less important in the lives of workers,
even for those who were employed in trades which were seasonal in nature. For instance, in
the 1930s many tobacco workers sought agricultural work on the big farms of Bursa during
the off-season in the tobacco industry. Especially in years of severe depression, close to half
of the members of the trade society moved locations. However, in the 1950s, this practice of
moving location for tobacco workers vanished. They were more attached to the city and found
temporary and lower-status works like portaging and shoe-shining when they were laid off.163
Like tobacco workers, other laborers who were engaged in seasonal works such as
those in food processing, construction works, even those in rubber goods industry too had a
quite different experience than the earlier generations. Gecekondus offered a “flexible” type
of housing for those workers whose occupational experiences were also flexible. In
accordance with income and status obtained by the owner through mobility in the labor
market rooms, service areas and gardens might be added to a squatter house, a new one might
be built adjacent to it, it might be renovated by using construction materials such as bricks and
162 Halit Kıvanç, “Sehir Đçinde Sehir Yaratanlar Arasında,” Milliyet, 22 August 1955.
163 Kosova, p.60.
63
cement, it might be rented partially or totally, might be torn down and rebuilt or sold.164
Therefore, the gecekondu-style housing offered the new laboring class an instrument which
could be managed both as a method of creating wealth in the good times and as financial
security for bad times.
Another example can be given of the tannery workers of Yedikule and Kazlıçesme.
From the late nineteenth century on, three fourth of the leather manufacturing had been made
in the Yedikule workshops. According to Erisçi there were almost 50 tanneries in the area
which employed roughly 1000 workers in 1937. Seeking an explanation for the misery of the
tannery workers,165 Erisçi states that most of the workers regularly moved between Yedikule
and their place of origin:
Local workers of all these factories live disconnectedly either around Topkapı or in
affordable neighborhoods like Koca Mustafa Pasa and Samatya. However, half of the
almost 1000 workers of tanneries are composed of Anatolian people. Being
bachelors, they seek shelter in the inns in Kazlıçesme, rooms above stores or they
share a room in Pasa Akaretler with 4-5 persons. 300-400 of them are from Çankırı,
almost 150-200 are Kurds. According to local workers, their strong presence in the
industry is due to the fact that they work for low wages and they favor each other.
For instance, workers of Çankırı origin have their own coffeehouses and cooks. And
still neither the Çankırı origins nor the Kurds have broken off ties with their native
villages. They move to the fields in summer and return to factories in winter. 166
164 The term flexibility is offered by Senyapılı in order to emphasize the fluidity of physical appearance and
ownership status of squatters in Turkey. See Senyapılı, Gecekondu: ‘Çevre’ Đsçilerin Mekanı.
165 Workers were paying one-third of their wages as rent. The average rental cost of one room shared with 4-5
other persons was 4 or 5 liras for a worker. Lütfi Erisçi, “Đstanbul’da Amele Mahalleleri”, Yeni Adam, vol.4,
no.177 (20 May 1937), p.4.
166 Ibid, p.5. “Bütün bu fabrikaların yerli amelesi Topkapı tarafında veya sehirde Koca Mustafa Pasa, Samatya
gibi ucuz yasanabilen semtlerde dağınık bir halde oturmaktadır. Fakat bilhassa tabakhanelerin 1000’e yakın
amelesinin yarısından fazlasını Anadolu çocukları teskil ediyorlar. Bunlar bekar olup Kazlıçesme’deki handa,
dükkan üstündeki odalarda, Pasa Akaretlerinde 4-5’i bir odada barınmaktadır. Ekserisi 300-400 ‘e yakın
Çankırı’lıdır. 150-200’e varan Kürtler de mühimdir. Gerek Çankırılıların, gerek Kürtlerin bu sahada
toplanmaları calibi dikkat osa gerektir. Yerli ameleye göre bu toplanmaya sebep fevkalade ucuza is kabul
etmeleri ve birbirlerini kayırmalarıdır. Filvaki mesela Çankırılıların ayrı kahve ve asçıları vardır. Aynı zamanda
Çankırılılar ve Kürtler köyleriyle münasebeti kesmemislerdir. Yazın tarlalara gidiyorlar ve kısın dönüyorlar.”
64
Because the tannery workers were engaged temporally in the work, they were not
regarded as part of the life in the district. Grocery and other stores sold them the basic goods
at prices 20 percent above the market price. No pharmacy or doctor existed in the
neighborhoods surrounding the factories. There was a mosque in the area, but the workers did
not seem to be very interested in religious obligations. Erisçi noted that the only leisure
activity of these workers was going to the coffeehouses.
However, this picture would change radically in less than two decades. In 1953 there
were 6 mosques, a number of movie theaters, medical institutions and a primary school in
Kazlıçesme.167 By then the number of squatter dwellings reached 15,000. Most of the
squatters were young migrants and former trampers who had moved temporally to the city to
work in industry. Having built their houses, they were more attached to the city and to their
urban work.
Unserviced land was cheap, if not free, enabling workers with small savings and
incomes to build or buy their own homes, and in areas that developed at significantly lower
densities than those of the central city. However, daily life was not easy in the irregular
settlements. By almost any measure, basic urban services fell short of satisfying basic human
needs in all poor districts.
At least until the mid-1960s these areas still lacked piped water and sewers. Not only
the gecekondu settlements in fringe areas, but also many neighborhoods inhabited by the
working poor lacked running water during the period. Around 55 percent of the working class
homes in Đstanbul were recorded to be not connected to the city water in 1960. The situations
167 Ümit Deniz, “Gecekondu Babası ile Kazlıçesmeyi Dolastık,” Milliyet, 22 July 1953; Ümit Deniz, “Herseyden
Önce asayis Lazım,” Milliyet, 21 July 1953. It is interesting to note that the construction of the first movie
theater in Kazlıçesme had been started before that of the primary school. Kemal Sülker, “Valinin 35000
Gecekondu Arasında Yaptığı Tetkikler,” Gece Postası, 3 November 1949.
65
in Ankara and Đzmir were even worse. The percentage of working class housing units which
lacked running water was 78 in Ankara and 71 in Đzmir.168
According to the estimations of the Ministry of Reconstruction and Settlement, 49
percent of all squatter housing lacked running water, 52 percent were without electricity, and
60 percent had no sewage disposal as late as the mid-1960s.169 The municipalities refused to
bring water because the future status of the gecekondus was ambivalent. The houses which
had no running water were supplied either from public wells which were only too often
affected by seepage either from the sewers or filthy water, or from standpipes which were
turned on only for short intervals during the day, or from water barrels in the backyards.
Especially in Ankara water ran in the fountains only during a short period in a day because of
the chronic shortage of water in the vicinity of Ankara. Collecting and carrying water was
usually the work of women. Long lines of women formed before dawn to catch the brief
period of running water that flowed from the fountains.
Housework was not easy for working class wives. One physical condition that
permeated the entire social environment of the poor was dirt. Streets were unpaved, which
were usually mere tracks and often impassable as they got muddy after rain. While dirt was a
part of life in the neighborhoods, people made a good deal of effort to keep themselves and
their homes clean. Although cleaning efforts were not always completely successful,
cleanliness was valued among the residents.170 Cleaning and tidying up the house occupied
the greater part of time of women. At night the streets were unlit and dangerous and did not
168 DĐE, 1960 Mesken Sartları Anketi, pp. 18,60,72.
169 Danielson and Keles, p.138.
170 For a similar line of argument see Ersan Ocak, “Yoksulun Evi”, in Yoksulluk Halleri: Türkiye’de Kent
Yoksulluğunun Toplumsal Görünümleri, ed. Necmi Erdoğan (Đstanbul: Demokrasi Kitaplığı Yayınları, 2002), pp.
97-99.
66
receive police protection. Housewives were on their own during the day, and there were fears
that they were an easy target for hawkers and ruffians.171
In the media coverage of poor settlements, the spread of one-class areas was
demonstrated to be particularly alarming. Crime was alleged to be greater on one-class
estates. The growing concern displayed in the media about the degeneration of workers in the
poor areas of the city and a growing recognition that slum communities were forming as
seedbeds of crime and illegal activities reflects, in a certain degree, the middle-class fears
about rapidly changing urban space. However, it should be noted that the above-mentioned
views of Ekmel Zadil and Gerhard Kessler, which mooted the irregular settlements as realms
of security and peace were equally far from reflecting the reality. A women squatter in
Kazlıçesme complained that four gendarmeries in charge of providing the security of the
whole area remained incapable and a gang of 60-70 men who had created a system of land
speculation had taken over the area.172 Zeytinburnu residents too stated that the security issue
was a major problem and demanded the establishment of a police station in the area instead of
the small gendarmerie unit.173
Poor sanitary conditions were another feature of the geography of irregular
settlements.174 One journalist observed as a common characteristic of irregular settlements
that outside of the houses there were adjoining cesspools and open drains running down the
171 Ümit Deniz, “Herseyden Önce Asayis Lazım,” Milliyet, 21 July 1953; “Gecekondularda Oturanların Bir
Tesebbüsü,” Milliyet, 5 September 1951.
172 “Đstanbul Ekspres Gecekondularda,” Đstanbul Ekspres, 24 January 1952.
173 “Gecekondular Sehri,” Aksam, 19 October 1951; “Gecekondu Mahallesinde Saat 22’den Sonra Sokağa
Çıkılmıyor,” Gece Postası, 9 September 1953.
174 Ümit Deniz, “Gecekondu Davasında Đs Nalı Bulmaya Kalmıs,” Milliyet, 27 July 1953.
67
streets.175 Higher disease rates were recorded in squatter areas than better-off locations. As
Danielson and Keles noted, “infectious diseases were more than twice as common in a typical
gecekondu in Đstanbul than in the city as a hole.”176 Tuberculosis especially among children
was the most serious common disease that could be identified in the irregular settlements.
Typhoid outbreaks occurred, though not very frequently. Malnutrition was a basic problem
because it reduced resistance to all diseases.
The living conditions also were hard in other working class districts. For instance,
Kemal Ilıcak wrote of the sheltering conditions of Kasımpasa, where a large population of
dock workers, printers, laborers of automobile fitting shops and tobacco workers lived, as
follows:
It appears that Kasımpasa is a workers’ district. And most of these workers are
bachelors. Although this is the case, neither the government nor the municipality and
industrial enterprises are taking care of the manner of living of these citizens. These
people work all day long for a daily wage of 3 or 4 liras and afterward seek shelter
in hostelries, inns and coffeehouses which are in destitute conditions. Every
coffeehouse in Kasımpasa seems to be functioning as a hotel. Providing bachelor
hostels for them bears great importance in terms of both labor productivity and
welfare for our citizens. 177
At that time the total number of people living in Kasımpasa was estimated to be 60,000
and the population of tobacco workers and their families was around 5000. Hayk Açıkgöz, a
communist party member, wrote extensively on the living conditions of the workers in
175 Orhan Kuyucaklı, “Pompei Gibi Toprak Altında Kalmaya Mahkum Evler,” Gece Postası, 27 September
1953.
176 Danielson and Keles, p. 138.
177 “Görülüyor ki Kasımpasa genis mikyasta bir isçi muhitidir. Bunların ekserisi de bekârdırlar. Böyle olduğu
halde ne hükümet, ne belediye ve ne de sanayi müesseseleri bu yurddasların yasayıs tarzlarile aslâ ve aslâ
ilgilenmemislerdir. Bunlar sabahtan aksama kadar 3 ilâ 4 lira gündelikle çalıstıktan sonra aksamları han,
hamam ve kahve köselerinde çok sefil halde barınmağa çalısırlar. Bunlar için muntazam bekar hanları,
mahalleler kurmak hem isin verimi ve hem de vatandas hayatının değeri bakımından büyük ehemmiyeti vardır.”
Kemal Ilıcak, “Kasımpasa,” Gece Postası, 17 September 1952.
68
Sendika newspaper. Follows is as a piece in which he described the conditions of shelter and
the commute for tobacco workers in a sarcastic manner:
Let me briefly portray the condition of Kasımpasa tobacco workers: A district in
dust, mud and moisture; ignored, dirty, narrow streets and blind alleys; entangled
ruined dwellings. A room in the pavement with a feeble door and with loose
windows. But what a room it is. Father, mother and children all live in this room;
here the food is cooked on the fireplace when they come back at night; here they
sleep in each others’ arms. They get up early before the dawn breaks. Mother,
father, children, everyone who is able to work takes the road to the workplace in
Ortaköy. It is winter; rainy or snowy. Our tobacco workers go to work on foot, they
do not get lazy, they don’t get wet, and they don’t get tired. The way is short; the
hill on which Beyoğlu is built will be climbed over. This easy practice is repeated
every day after eight hours of work. (What did they do at work? They chatted on
their seats or if they get too bored they sang the song “tütüncü kız” altogether.) In
the evening the scenes reappear in reverse order. And they are back in
Kasımpasa.178
As observed by H. Açıkgöz, the tobacco workers of Kasımpasa usually walked to work
on foot. Walking to work was a widespread experience for workers before the 1960s, in a
period when the poor neighborhoods were poorly served by public transit. Transportation was
particularly hard for commuters of the fringe areas who had to walk to the end of a car line
that would take them to commercial centers.179 City bus services were inadequate and rarely
178 “Sizlere kısaca Kasımpasa tütüncülerini tasvir edeyim: Tozlu, çamurlu, rutubetli bir semt, insan emeği
görmemis dar, pis, çıkmaz sokaklar, içiçe girmis viran evler. Kapısı, penceresi tutmayan zemin katta bir oda. Bu
bir odadır ama pir odadır. Ana, baba, çoluk çocuk burada oturur, isten gelince geceden geceye burada ocak
yakılıp, burada yemek pisirilir, hepbirden koyun koyuna burada yatılır. Sabah safak sökmeden mum ısığile
kalkılır. Ana, baba, çoluk çocuk eli is tutan herkes Ortaköy’e gitmek üzere yola çıkılır. Kıstır, yağmur, kar
yağmaktadır. Onlar yağa dursunlar, bizim tütüncüler üsenmeden, ıslanmadan, yorulmadan! Paltosuz,
musambasız, delik ayakkapla ise yayan giderler. Yol kısadır, Beyoğlunun kâin olduğu tepe çıkılıp inilecektir. Đste
o kadar, geldik Ortaköy’e. bu basit ameliye günde sekiz saat çalıstıktan sonra (ne yapmıslardı ki oturdukları
yerde muhabbet etmisler veya çok sıkılmıslarsa hep bir ağızdan tütüncü kız türküsünü söylemislerdir) Aksama
tersinden tekrar olunur. Ve Kasımpasa’ya gelinir. Bütün gün çalısmıs, üstelik soğuk ve yağmur altında saatlerce
yürümüs yorulmuslar, ıslanmıslar, üsümüsler, aksam olmus acıkmıslardır. Sıcak bir yemek ve sıcak bir odada
istirahati hak etmemisler midir?” H. Açıkgöz, “Sosyal ve Sıhhi Bakımdan: Tütün isçisi Nasıl Yasıyor?!”,
Sendika Gazetesi (19 October 1946). Hayk Açıkgöz became a member of TKP when he was a student at the
Faculty of Medicine during the WWII. He spent almost three years in prison for being a member of the party
before he fled abroad in 1949. His autobiography is provided in Dr. Hayk Açıkgöz, Anadolulu Bir Ermeni
Komünistin Anıları (Đstanbul: Belge Yayınları, 2006).
179 City bus services were made available for Gültepe only after 1963. See Hart, p.105
69
met the needs of the workers, forcing them to walk long hours to go to work.180 Especially in
the big cities like Đstanbul and Ankara the journey took an hour or more each way.
In Đstanbul, trams were more heavily used in city transport in the 1940s, but fell out of
favor after the mid-1950s. According to data provided by Çelik Gülersoy, the number of
trams used in the public service dropped gradually after 1949. In that year 269 cars conveyed
14 million people in Đstanbul. The number of trams declined to 229 in 1957 and to 82 in 1961.
By the time the number of journeys made on trams decreased to 4.2 million.181
While the importance of trams in public transportation diminished gradually in the
1950s and the cars were finally removed from the system after 1961, the city bus service came
to bear the weight of the system. The number of city buses serving in Istanbul was only 29 in
1946. 5.5 million journeys were made on the buses.182 In 1955, the number of buses in service
rose to 196 and the number of passengers transported raised nine-fold, to 50 million. By 1957,
the number of buses reached 567 which transported around 90 million passengers.183
However, the growing number of buses fell short of satisfying the fast expanding demand for
public transport. Major General Refik Tulga, who replaced Ethem Yetkiner as Mayor of
Đstanbul after the May 27 coup d’état, declared that an additional one thousand buses was
needed to solve the transportation problem of the city.184 It is noteworthy that in Ankara the
improvement in the number of city buses lagged behind Đstanbul. In 1949, the number of city
180 Kosova, pp. 125, 136, 143; Orhan Kuyucaklı, “Eyüplüler Vasıtadan Dert Yanıyor,” Gece Postası, 19
December 1956.
181 Çelik Gülersoy, Tramvay Đstanbul’da (Đstanbul: 1989), p.201.
182 Đstanbul Belediyesi Nesriyat ve Đstatistik Müdürlüğü, Đstanbul Sehri Đstatistik Yıllığı, 1945-1949 (Đstanbul:
Belediye Matbaası, 1950), p. 60.
183 Đstanbul Belediyesi Nesriyat ve Đstatistik Müdürlüğü, Đstanbul Sehri Đstatistik Yıllığı, 1955-1959 (Đstanbul:
Belediye Matbaası, 1961), p. 149.
184 “Vali: Daha 1000 Otobüs Lazım Dedi,” Gece Postası, 22 November 1960.
70
buses was only 59 in Ankara. The number rose to 107 by the end of 1957, and grew to only
173 by the end of 1963.185
Many areas in the vicinity of the city did not benefit from transportation services at
all.186 Even the new working class settlements in the city center like Bomonti lacked city bus
service.187 Others who were more fortunate to be on the route of the bus services had to wait
long hours at the stations. The workers in Mecidiyeköy complained about the inadequacy of
the city bus service. Only four buses served the district and especially in the busy journey
times during the day the cars were so crowded that many workers could not take one.188 There
were recurrent reports in the media that a major annoyance of workers in Istanbul was the
undersupply of city buses. Workers complained that they often arrived late to work because of
the overcrowded buses.189 The Gece Postası newspaper reported that the scarcity of the bus
service forced many workers in Đstanbul to ride bicycles to and from work.190
Except during the rush hours bus service was infrequent, so some commuters
patronized the dolmus (shared taxi) service. Shared taxi prices were maintained by the local
drivers’ association and cab fare was high, therefore not very prefered by workers. In 1958,
the new cab fares for some routes between working class districts and commercial centers
were announced to be as follows:191
185 Fehmi Yavuz, “Ankara’da Sehir içi Ulasım Hizmetleri Sorunu” in Onuncu ve On birinci Đskan ve Sehircilik
Haftası Konferansları (Ankara: AÜ SBF Đskan ve Sehircilik Enstitüsü Yayınları, 1971), pp.14, 18.
186 See, for instance, “Topkapı Dısında Oturanlar Belediyeden Vasıta Đstiyor,” Milliyet, 7 August 1957.
187 Tümertekin, Bomonti, p.57.
188 “Mecidiyeköylü Đsçiler Otobüslerden Sikayetçi,” Milliyet, 25 November 1954.
189 For instance, Orhan Kuyucaklı, “Eyüplüler Vasıtadan Dert Yanıyor,” Gece Postası, 19 December 1956. See
also “Halkın Sesi”, Milliyet, 27 March 1953.
190 “Đse Bisikletle Giden Đsçiler,” Gece Postası, 29 December 1957
191 “Zamlı Dolmus Tarifesi Dün Đlan Edildi,” Milliyet, 21 October 1958.
71
Eminönü-Kazlıçesme: 150 kr Beyazıt-Zeytinburnu: 120 kr
Sisli-Kasımpasa: 75kr Eminönü-Eyüp: 100 kr
Beyazıt-Topkapı: 60 kr Eminönü-Kasımpasa: 60 kr
Beyazıt-Taslıtarla: 100 kr
On the other hand, few workers were able to take advantage of shuttle bus service from
home to work. Workers of a packaging factory in Maltepe often spent the rest of the night at
the coffeehouses around the workplace after finishing the night shift at 2:30 am since the
management refused to provide a shuttle service for them.192 Probably, only in some of the
state factories and in a few private companies were shuttle services made available for
workers. For example, the Bakırköy Cloth Factory provided a shuttle service to nearby
districts like Zeytinburnu and Osmaniye because there were no alternative modes of public
transportation.193 Some private industrial plants like the Yenel Weaving Factory in Topkapı
also provided service for long-distance commuting workers. However, the Yenel Factory
workers complained that the service vehicle was an old truck and tens of workers had to travel
crammed into the back of this vehicle.194
Consequently, for many, walking to and from work was the only option. For instance,
Fatma Duyar, a tobacco worker in the Cibali Tobacco Factory, said that she walked between
her home in Çukurbostan and Cibali every day: “I earn 85 liras in a month. It is not possible
for me to spare money for transportation. So I walk. I have made the way shorter by walking
on the side streets. Every day I discover a new street, and every day the distance get shorter.
192 “Bu Đsyerinde Çalısan Đsçiler Vasıtasızlıktan Sabahlıyor,” Gece Postası, 19 May 1959.
193 See Turgay Tuna, Bir Zamanlar Bakırköy (Đstanbul: Đletisim Yayınları, 1996).
194 “Bir Đsçinin Feryadı,” Tasvir, 17 January 1949.
72
(laughs)”195 High commuting costs, inadequacy of vehicles and inappropriate schedules
forced families like the Duyars to live in central districts, even when they wanted to move to a
cheaper house in a squatter settlement. The poorest, those either without regular employment
or those least able to move away from the commercial centers, were forced by their need to be
near the mere chance of a day’s work, to live in the worst crowded areas.
On the other hand, in the working-class districts where they grew up adjacent to
factories, the poor commuting conditions aided the development of a strong attachment to the
neighborhood. For instance, in Zeytinburnu where 56 percent of men and 64 percent of
women commute to work on foot, the residential turnover appeared to be low.196 Many people
moved only short distances when they had to move, and might still have frequented the same
local shops and public spaces. This strong attachment to neighborhood also was manifested in
the growth of neighborhood organizations that will be mentioned below.
The Meaning of Home for Workers
Commenting on the long and broad history of suburban working class settlements in
different countries, Richard Harris argues that home ownership has a far different meaning for
workers than it does to any other social group. While middle-class observers often treat home
ownership as a goal in its own right, Harris contends, workers commonly view it
instrumentally, as a means of evading the uncertain, petty tyrannies of tenancy, as financial
security (especially for old age), as a method of creating wealth and even more important as
195 “Đsçinin 24 Saati: Tütün Fabrikası Đsçilerinden Fatma Duyar,” Gece Postası, 22 June 1956. “Ayda 85 lira
alıyorum. Yol parası ayırmama imkan yok. Đster istemez yürüyorum. Ara sokaklardan geçerek yolumu
kısaltmısımdır. Hergün bir sokak buluyorum ve hergün yolum biraz daha kısalıyor.”
196 Only 3 percent of workers in Zeytinburnu had to change more than one vehicle when travelling to and from
work. Hart, pp.66-67.
73
an object of self-expression. Having control over one’s living space is the prime motive of
workers: “It has been above all the desire for autonomy and control that has determined how
workers viewed homes.” 197
As a matter of fact it is a very hard task to make generalizations about the meaning and
role of the home for the working class families in Turkey. This is partly because of the rapid
transformation of the urban setting which has been characterized by the commercialization of
urban land and speculation of it that have put its stamp over the urban economy since the
early 1950s.198 On the other hand, only to speak of manual workers will include people who
had different workplace experiences and incomes. However, I believe, Harris’ argument still
bears validity for our understanding of working class housing in Turkey.
As has been demonstrated above, the middle class view, which was forcefully
expressed by reformers and social scientists, emphasized physical and moral health as the
qualities of the ideal home. In their vision the privacy of the family and sanitary conditions
were critical. However, ownership was not perceived to be crucial for the middle classes and
many well-off families who could have afforded to own their own residences preferred to
rent. This was a normal attitude in a period when home ownership was not considered to be
an investment as it has become today. Yet, for workers to have the title to their own home, in
spite of the costs in sanitation and comfort, bore much more significance. Owning a home
provided both an opportunity to accumulate wealth, and a modest security for the workers.
Especially under the conditions of rampant inflation and rapidly increasing rents, as tenants,
197 Richard Harris, “The Suburban Worker in the History of Labor,” International Labor and Working-Class
History, no. 64 (Fall 2003), p.10. See also Alan Murie, “Housing,” in The Students Companion to Social Policy,
ed. Pete Alcock et.al. (Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 1998), p. 299.
198 Various studies on the ownership status of the gecekondus have indicated that a significant part of the
gecekondu owners were actually those who have used commercial channels of construction. For an overview,
see Buğra, “The Immoral Economy of Housing”, p.311.
74
they were at the mercy of landlords, often under the pressure of increasing rent payments and
even feeling the threat of eviction.199 Home ownership also provided a degree of financial
security for old age, particularly in the period before pensions and health security became
widely available for workers.
As a result, rates of home ownership among workers were higher than their incomes
might suggest. In 1960, the home ownership rate for skilled and unskilled workers in Đstanbul
was above that for self-employed professionals. 39.1 percent of workers were recorded to be
home owners in Đstanbul, whereas the rate of home ownership was 38 percent for selfemployed
professionals and 31.6 percent for civil servants. In a similar vein, the rate of
homeownership in Ankara was 47.9 percent for workers whereas the rate was 39 percent for
self-employed professionals and 25.6 percent for civil servants. In Đzmir, where home
ownership seems to have been more attainable, 66 percent of workers owned their homes
while the figure was 55.2 percent for professionals and 42.5 percent for civil servants.200 It is
worth repeating that this phenomenon was not peculiar to Turkey, but can also be observed by
the early 1950s in a wide range of countries, including the member states of America and
Australia.201
Many observers and journalists witnessed the strong desire of the workers to make
whatever sacrifices necessary in order to acquire homes of their own. In a series of interviews
conducted by Kemal Sülker, many squatters were found to be workers who had been
employed at regular jobs for a long period of time, but had to move to the gecekondu since
199 “Bir Đsçi Kooperatif Evi Edinmenin Đmkansızlığını Anlatıyor,” Gece Postası, 1 January 1956.
200 DĐE, 20 Sehirde 1960 Mesken Sartları Anketi (Ankara: 1962), pp. 60, 72. These data are consistent with
Harris’ argument that home ownership has been a more important target for the manual working class than by
any other social group.
201 Harris, p. 17.
75
they could not afford the high rents in the established districts of the city. For instance, a
factory worker, Veli Görgün, told that since he did not want to continue to pay 60 liras every
month for a one-room apartment, he took his family and moved to a squatter house in
Kazlıçesme, a gecekondu district in which basic urban services fell short of satisfying
minimal needs by almost any measure.202
Another squatter said that with his eight members of the family he had been paying 40
liras for a house in Besiktas which had only one room and a hall before they built their own
gecekondu. Their gecekondu was, too, a single-room dwelling, but they knew that it provided
them the opportunity to extend the living area with additions and improve the quality of the
house in the long term. 203
The primary drive of workers in building or purchasing squatter dwellings was to
assert control over a significant part of their lives. In a period when the sphere of union
politics was restricted tightly and workplace struggles were relatively weak and immature, the
search for gaining control and autonomy over their living space guided their action. Workers
were more determined in seeking ownership of homes than other classes whose paid
employment offered more space for initiative and autonomy. It may be argued that the
workers may have reconciled the limited control they exerted within the workplace in return
for securing greater autonomy in their homes.204 Where they could not afford a regular
housing, building or purchasing a gecekondu was an attractive option. A gecekondu was
preferable to most workers both because it offered more autonomy and freedom to project the
architecture and facility, and also because it was cheaper to attain. As mentioned above, the
202 Kemal Sülker, “Valinin 35000 Gecekondu Arasında Yaptığı Tetkikler,” Gece Postası, 3 November 1949.
203 “Đstanbul Ekspres Gecekondularda,” Đstanbul Ekspres, 25 January 1952.
204 Harris, p. 19.
76
average cost of construction of a cooperative house was calculated to be 14,000 liras in the
mid-1950s, while an ordinary squatter dwelling was sold at 1300 liras in Kazlıçesme in
1952.205 Moreover, the drab and monotonous style of architecture and small floor space
offered by an average cooperative dwelling unit was another factor which decreased the
attractiveness of cooperative houses.
Karpat as well observes “the desire to own property” as a primary reason for squatters
to move to gecekondu. However, he rightfully states that if the dwellers in Đstanbul around
1953-58 had not been granted the title to the land by the ruling Democrat Party hoping for
securing votes, and if the gecekondu dwellers had not made successful use of political
channels for pressuring the government and municipal authorities, the urge to build the
gecekondu might have been less.206
The legal regulations regarding squatter dwellings have commonly been assumed as
amnesty laws which have legalized and also encouraged the irregular settlements in Turkey.
The first piece of legislation specifically concerning squatter housing was enacted as early as
1948 with the Law Enabling the Ankara Municipality to Allocate and Transfer Part of Its
Land under Special Circumstances and Without Having to Comply with the Provisions of
Law 2490.207 As the name implies, this law was exclusively enacted for the Ankara municipal
area and intended to improve the already-built squatter houses. With this law, the Ankara
municipality was enabled to allocate land to those who wanted to build their own houses and
once the building was completed the municipality was to transfer the title on the land. During
205 Đstanbul Ekspres, 24 January 1952.
206 Karpat, Gecekondu, p.89
207 Ankara Belediyesine, Arsa ve Arazisinden Belli Kısmını Mesken Yapacaklara 2490 sayılı Kanun
Hükümlerine Bağlı Olmaksızın Tahsis ve Temlik Yetkisi Verilmesi Hakkında Kanun. For a brief account of
legislations on squatter housing, see Heper, chapter 2.
77
the same year another law concerning the encouragement of house construction was enacted
which extended the jurisdiction of gecekondu amnesty of the previous law to all
municipalities. That it had been realized that the gecekondu problem could not be solved by
legitimizing the already-built dwellings, a new law was enacted after only one year which
facilitated the procedures of demolishing houses.
When the gecekondu became a major problem in 1953, a law passed that eased the
acquisition of title by the established gecekondus. According to the law, new gecekondus
would be destroyed if found in the state of construction. If not, they could be destroyed after
legal proceedings, and the builder would be subject to fines. A law in 1959 restated the legal
procedure for demolishing squatter houses. However, the course of proceedings often favored
the squatters. Once the violation was passed to the court, the builder was usually safe. Every
apparatus of delay and manoeuvre was manipulated in the court to save the builder for the
simple reason that many people on the lower echelons of the office were living in the
gecekondu themselves or had close relatives there. As noted above, in some settlements it was
estimated that approximately 10 percent of gecekondu dwellers came from the ranks of civil
servants.
Consequently, despite the abundance of legislations which aimed at preventing new
gecekondus, their number grew rapidly over the years. Even the demolition campaigns and
increased police surveillance of squatter settlements did not make much sense in the face of
strong inclinations to acquire a home. As Đbrahim Öğretmen’s 1957 study revealed, there were
even cases where the same house was demolished seven times.208 The pressure against the
gecekondu dwellers served nothing, but to strengthen the identity group ties.
208 Öğretmen, p.34.
78
Neighborhood associations provided the primary mechanism to strengthen group
solidarity and articulate the common interests for squatters. As irregular settlements grew up
rapidly in cities these associations became more important as they served as links between
gecekondu dwellers, political parties and local authorities. Gecekondu Beautification
Associations (Gecekondu Güzellestirme Dernekleri) were founded for settlement
improvement. Furthermore common interests of seeking titles to land were the basis of strong
attachment to these neighborhood organizations. Yasa’s study exhibited that about one-third
of the household heads in the Ankara gecekondu settlements were members of at least one
formal organization such as trade unions, professional associations or cooperatives.209
However, neighborhood association membership was the most common form of organization
among the squatters.
A Gecekonduyu Güzellestirme Derneği was found in nearly every major squatter
settlement in Tukey. In some settlements such as Kazlıçesme there was more than one
beautification associations.210 They served as places for gathering, holding meetings, cultural
activities and festivals211 as well as provided channels of formal communication with the
authorities and politicians. Karpat observes that these associations, “whose outward purpose is
to improve the settlement’s appearance, actually functions as a liaison office between dwellers
and political parties, and conducts political bargains with city and even national
politicians.”212 There is no doubt that through these associations the gecekondu dwellers
209 Yasa, Ankara’da Gecekondu Aileleri, p.212.
210 Gece Postası, 22 July 1953.
211 Indeed one of them, Sisli Gecekondu Beautification Association organized a gecekondu beauty contest in
1952. “Gecekondular Güzellik Kraliçesi Seçimi,” Milliyet, 23 July 1953.
212 Karpat, Gecekondu, p. 92.
79
enhanced their organizational capacity and skill to represent and defend the interests of the
settlement in political and administrative circles.
The relations of these organizations with administrative bodies were not always
cooperative as implied by the system of exchange of property titles for votes which is
described by Buğra as “negative reciprocity relations.” During the initial years of their
formation, the relationship between the associations and the municipality were rather
unfriendly and conflictive. In the early June 1952, the Sisli Gecekondu Beautification
Association announced its decision to organize a meeting in Taksim square to call for the
legislation of the draft bill concerning the legal status of the squatter dwellings be enacted
soon.213 The meeting was held on July 22, despite the governor’s warning that it would be an
illegal act. The police harshly dispersed the demonstrators.214 One year later the Đstanbul
Gecekondu Beautification Association headed by Nail Tanyeri held another meeting in
Taksim square to protest the mayor Gökay.215 This time the security forces did not interrupt
the meeting, yet one month after this demonstration of the dwellers, the beautification
associations was closed.216 However, the associations opened again one year later and
thereafter the relations between neighborhood organizations and governmental bodies took on
a more accommodating form as the government became more generous in granting titles to
the land.
213 “Sisli Gecekodularını Güzellestirme Derneğinin Mitingi,” Milliyet, 10 June 1952. It is noteworthy that four
out of seven members of the founding administrative body of Sisli-Mecidiyeköy Gecekondu Beautification
Society were laborers in 1959. “Sisli Mecidiyeköy Gecekonduları Güzellestirme Derneği Ana Nizamnamesi”,
Türkiye Birlik Gazetesi, 16 January 1959.
214 “Đzinsiz Miting,” Aksam, 23 June 1952.
215 “Gecekondu Derneği Dün Taksim’de Miting Yaptı,” Milliyet, 17 August 1953.
216 “Gecekondular Güzellestirme Derneği Kapatıldı,” Milliyet, 12 September 1953.
80
On May 6, 1955 a delegation of six squatters from the Đstanbul Gecekondu
Beautification Association came to Ankara and demanded from the government to show
alternative locations for the 5000 gecekondus which were to be demolished. Three months
later the same association held an assembly to create a federation together with the related
associations from Ankara and Đzmir. The talks and debates at the assembly revealed the
desire of the squatters to integrate to the city. The assembly advised the squatters to wear
clean and proper clothes, cut their nails and comb their hair and behave like the established
urban middle classes during the meetings with the state officials.217
The governments and state officials came to realize that the development of reciprocity
networks as an informal redistributive practice served better the purposes of preventing social
unrest and legitimizing the established order. While the original drive of the workers in
building or purchasing squatter houses was to secure autonomy and assert control over a
significant part of their lives, this was not necessarily true of the consequences. The
reciprocity ties and the ongoing commercialization of the urban land provided the
environment for homeowners to take on more conservative political behavior.218
One initial argument in this section was that workers’ housing should be understood
not only as part of the working class experience, but also as the expression of the aspirations
of that class which is also consistent with the politics of workplace. Yet it should be added to
the argument that the role of the state and dynamics of local politics also should be included
in the picture.
217 Senyapılı, Barakadan Gecekonduya, p. 200.
218 For a comprehensive study on the development of political behavior in the Đstanbul gecekondu settlements,
see Murat Cemal Yalçıntan and Adem Erdem Erbas, “Impacts of ‘Gecekondu’ on the Electoral Geography of
Đstanbul”, International Labor and Working-Class History, no. 64 (Fall 2003).
81
Conclusion
Any study of working class history and culture needs to focus on the interaction
between people and environment from a social science perspective. Especially during the
periods of massive displacements, the problems pertaining to the housing conditions of
laboring families and the residential segregation between classes become import factors that
shaped the experiences and identities of working people. In the aftermath of the Second
World War, Turkey experienced a massive population flow from villages to cities and an
accelerated pace of urban growth. The newcomers in the city faced an acute shortage of
suitable low-cost housing. Since most regular housing was too expensive for the laboring
poor, they established inferior dwellings in areas around the industrial workplaces. The
established middle class residents regarded the new arrivals as invaders who were
undermining the security, health and morality of life in the city. In the name of such qualities
the middle classes claimed the right to observe and regulate the working class residences. The
fears about social unrest that might be generated by the shortage and poor conditions of
working class housing were added by the alleged moral defects of life in overcrowded homes
in poor districts of the city.
The established links between the dwellings of workers and the external sanitary and
moral condition provided the juncture for the birth of housing policy in the early 1950s. The
ministry of labor Hayrettin Erkmen took the problem seriously and exerted himself to solve
the problem by supporting workers’ housing cooperatives. However, the subsidized credit
channels for cooperatives were open only to a small segment of working poor. Throughout the
decade the housing policy and its outcome were discussed widely in the public. By the early
1960s it was clear that this policy remained incapable of meeting the growing demand of
affordable housing for urban working class families.
82
The low-cost irregular housing spread after the 1950s and the squatter settlements
developed as the home of the working class. Although the occupational composition of the
gecekondu communities varied from one district to another, almost everywhere the proportion
of workers was higher. One important result of the growth of gecekondus was that they made
their residents more attached to the city and to their urban work.
The living conditions were hard in all working clas districts. Basic urban services like
piped water and sewers were lacking in many poor neighborhoods. Transportation services
were worse, which made walking long distances to work a central experience for most
workers. Poor commuting conditions also supported their attachment to gecekondu
neighborhoods where the latter grew adjacent to factories.
The meaning of home for workers differed radically from the middle class vision of
home. In a period in which rents increased rapidly and when formal social security was
unattainable for most workers, homeownership became very important for workers. It may
also be argued that having control over their living space guided their action since they had
very limited control in their workplace. As a result the homeownership rate of workers was
higher than that of any single group during the period.
83
CHAPTER 2
WORKING-CLASS LEISURE
Leisure is yet another subject which has received virtually no attention from the
working class historians in Turkey. This may stem, in part, from the reluctance of researchers
and scholars to handle seriously “non-serious” and “non-academic” subjects like films and
plays. Another reason for this neglect of leisure may be the silence of materials when it comes
to the issue of the cultural dimensions of working class experience. But the main reason lies in
a more general restriction. Until recently, working class history has been perceived as a too
narrow field principally preoccupying itself with formal and institutional manifestations of
workers, political and ideological background of labor legislation, problems of industrial
relations and registering the strikes or strike like actions.
Yet there is a growing consensus among the scholars in recent times on the need to
develop research into off-work time and the different ways in which workers have used it.
There is a growing recognition of the fact that like the shared experiences of poor working
conditions and economic insecurity, poverty and crowded conditions of working class
neighborhoods, shared experiences of popular leisure activities sustained the working class
84
identity. 219 As Joanna Bourke notes, the “routine activities of everyday life” in and out of
work nurtured class identity as a “metaphor for defining oneself and other people.”220 Leisure
may have an enriching function for workers who are alienated by their work by having an
opposite character of work. Or it may function as an escape by providing compensatory
fantasies of immense and immediate wealth and power. However, in either way, working
class men and women associated with others, make leisure choices and define other people as
like them or not.
By extending the research to the areas of the social and cultural experiences of
workers, historians may provide the basis for looking at the class formation in its totality.
Therefore we may move beyond state and elite centric approaches and seek new answers to
the perennial questions of labor history pertaining to the weakness of labor based
organizations, political behavior of workers etc. Moreover, new questions could be brought
forth by studying leisure. How do we come to terms with working class culture? How did the
working class culture change as they entered the more commercialized world of leisure in the
immediate aftermath of the Second World War? What meaning did workers ascribe to these
leisure activities and institutions and in what way did it differ from the values of the middle
classes?
Historically, the term leisure has been defined as recreational or discretionary time
spent outside the formal demands and requirements of work. Below, three different leisure
activities and institutions (cinema, football and coffeehouse) are examined in order to
219 There is a vast literature comprising both theoretical and emprical analyses on the relationship between
popular recreation and working class culture. For an overview of theoretical discussions on the field, see Ben
Carrington, “Introduction: Rethinking Labour and Leisure,” Leisure Studies, vol. 27, no. 4 (October 2008). A
rather old but not out of date summary of British scholarship on the nineteenth century working class leisure is
provided in William J. Baker, “The Leisure Revolution in Victorian England: A Review of Recent Literature,”
Journal of Sport History, vol. 6, no. 3 (Winter 1979).
220 Bourke, p.25.
85
exemplify the working class leisure conduct during the period. Workers could exercise very
limited control over their work time in a capitalist setting. However, as is argued below, they
effectively sought to preserve their off-work time as a distinct cultural sphere of existence.
At this point it may come to one’s mind in what sense the culture described here is
distinctively “working class” as opposed to “popular” or “urban”. Yet, I find such a dispute
terminological so far as the analysis is confined to the city, which had become more
industrialized and contained a growing portion of the working class in the course of the period
analyzed in this study. Here, it is not suggested that this culture and character of leisure is
confined to the workers only. As Stuart Hall writes “there is no separate, autonomous,
‘authentic’ layer of working class culture to be found.”221 However, this part of the chapter
argues, by their sheer weight of numbers and dispositions, workers have put their
indiscernible stamp on the shape and character taken by this culture and leisure conduct. The
examples of cinema and football will illustrate this point.
Adherents of the Frankfurt School critique of culture industry have claimed that
commercial forms of leisure precipitated the development of a classless mass culture. This
approach is not shared in the present analysis. In the light of the recent sociological and
anthropological studies,222 a preliminary argument of this study is that what is more important
221 Stuart Hall, “Notes on Deconstructing the Popular,” in People's History and Socialist Theory, (London:
Routledge, 1981). Quoted in Michael Denning, Culture in the Age of Three Worlds (New York: Verso, 2004), p.
100.
222 It is worth recalling here E. P. Thompson’s treatment of anthropological research. Thompson proposes that
historians use anthropological questions to open new areas of research rather than simply and uncritically taking
anthropological models which evolved with an inadequate historical component. In this vein he writes, “for us,
the anthropological impulse is chiefly felt, not in model building, but in locating new problems, in seeing old
problems in new ways, in an emphasis on norms or value systems and upon rituals, in attention to expressive
functions of forms of riot and disturbance, and upon symbolic expressions of authority, control and hegemony.”
E. P. Thompson, “Folklore, Anthropology and Social History,” The Indian Historical Review, vol.3, no.2 (1978).
Quoted in Renato Rosaldo, “Celebrating Thompson’s Heroes: Social Anaysis in History and Anthropology”, in
Harvey J. Kaye and Keith McCelland (eds.), E.P. Thompson: Critical Perspectives, (Philadelphia: Temple
University Press, 1990), p. 106.
86
than the content of the leisure forms is the leisure conduct itself. Working class men and
women imposed their own meaning and uses upon the new leisure forms. On the other hand,
putting class expression against social control, resistance against containment, autonomy
against incorporation would not solve the problem.223 These antinomies which had structured
most ways of seeing popular culture should be transcended by acknowledging that neither
pole existed in real life, “that all cultural creation in capitalist society is divided against
itself.”224
It is also worth acknowledging that despite the importance of themes taken in this
study in the working class leisure, a discussion of them does not exhaust the recreational
expressions of working class culture in that period. A more comprehensive treatment of this
subject would require an examination of other themes such as religious practices and
holidays, amusement parks, taverns and pubs, gambling, participant and spectator sports,
company-sponsored recreational programs, community associations, and informal visiting
patterns. Furthermore, focusing solely on “public” leisure forms fails to shed light fully on the
leisure patterns of working class women. Therefore it should be noted that the analysis of the
cinema, football and coffeehouse presented in this study is intended as illustrative rather than
exhaustive. Further research is necessary to broaden the analysis to other forms of leisure.
A final note should be made concerning the periodization made in this study. The fact
that organized leisure is of very recent origin is often overlooked. It flourished with the
development of the bourgeois public sphere in the nineteenth century and moved horizontally
223 For a perceptive critique of the terminology of the literature on working class culture, see Gareth Stedman
Jones, “Class Expression versus Social Control: A Critique of Recent Trends in the Social History of ‘Leisure’,”
in Languages of Class, (Cambridge: Cabridge University Press, 1983), pp. 76-89. A powerful critical appraisal
of a selection of literature on social control is provided in F.M.L. Thompson, “Social Control in Victorian
England,” The Economic History Review, vol. 34, no. 2 (May 1981).
224 Denning, p.99
87
across national boundaries and vertically to the lower classes in the course of late nineteenth
and twentieth centuries with the rationalization of work and the creation of a formal concept
of leisure. A sharp distinction between work and recreation began to emerge with the onset of
industrialization and urbanization. Yet the transformation of traditional recreational activities
and the introduction of organized and commercial leisure activities and institutions was a long
process. If economic and social change provided the preconditions of the rise of mass
recreation, it was not until working class people began to secure adequate off-work time that
organized leisure could become a working class reality.
In Turkey, important steps were taken to increase the off work time after the end of the
Second World War. As a matter of fact the major accomplishments of the DP rule concerning
the labor legislation were the changes in the regulations about the holidays and off-days of the
workers and the salaries to be paid on such days. In 1951, half of the salary was accepted to
be paid for the weekend holidays and general off-days. Later, in 1956, this amount was
accepted as the full salary. Furthermore, the Democrats enacted another law in 1954 which
made it compulsory for employers to give an hour lunch break for the workers living in the
cities and towns with a minimum population of 10,000 or more. Therefore, for example, in
Turkey the beginnings of widespread working class attendance at movies occurred after the
reduction of the working week and the introduction of the weekly holidays in the post-war
period. Similarly the achievement of the working class dominance in football was tied closely
to the improvement of wages and shortening of the working day. Therefore the 1946-1960
period provides an excellent opportunity to study the rise of popular leisure and the
transformation of working class culture in Turkey.
88
Cinema
Cinema emerged everywhere as a foremost working-class entertainment.225 In 1910,
70 percent of customers of the New York movie theaters were estimated to be factory
workers. At just around the same time, the German working class was already the primary
spectator group of the cinema, which was perceived to be the cheapest amusement activity. In
England, too, the cinema was observed to be “the most prominent feature of the spare time
activity” in the early twentieth century working-class estates.226 However, one had to wait
until the end of the Second World War for moviegoing to become a form of mass
entertainment and the primary leisure time activity for the working class in Turkey.
As in most countries, moving pictures first appeared in Turkey in the early twentieth
century as a sporadic novelty. By the 1910s, however, movies had found a regular spot on the
programs of the major theaters of Đstanbul. In these early years of cinema, theaters often
exhibited movies as part of vaudeville programs, circus shows or as special representations.
Yet with the introduction of more complex films imported from abroad (mainly from France
and the United States) with frequent captions and musical accompaniment, large numbers of
middle and upper class men and women began to join the moviegoing audience. Grand
picture palaces which were built later in that decade in the commercial districts in Đstanbul
and Đzmir, with expansive lobbies, thick carpeting, statues and paintings generally appealed to
the well-off families.
According to G. Gilbert Deaver, who wrote a very informative essay on the
recreational activities in Đstanbul, there were approximately 32 permanent and 12 outdoor
225 Hakan Kaynar, “Al Gözüm Seyreyle Dünyayı: Đstanbul ve Sinema,” Kebikeç, no. 27 (2009), pp.192-193.
226 Andrzej Olechnowicz, Working-Class Housing in England Between the Wars: The Becontree Estate (New
York: Oxford University Press, 1997). For the German case, see Miriam Hansen, “Early Silent Cinema: Whose
Public Sphere?” New German Critique, no. 29 (Spring-Summer, 1983).
89
motion picture theaters in 1921. Almost half of these theaters were located in Pera and Galata,
and the majority of them were owned by foreigners.227 Most of the cinemas cited by Deaver in
Đstanbul survived well into the 1930s even though their ownership was taken over by Turkish
entrepreneurs.228 The steady number of the salons bears witness to the fact that the degree of
interest in cinema stayed unchanged until the 1940s. The official statistics demonstrates that
as of 1931, the number of movie theaters was only 35 in Đstanbul and 144 throughout the
country.229 The same statistics show that there were only three permanent cinema salons in
Ankara.
The tardiness of the development of a firm cinema industry in Turkey is commonly
ascribed to the lack of state interest in the filmic medium. A shared assumption among
scholars and critics is that the Kemalist cadres and policy makers of the early republican era
did not give enough importance to the power of this communicative medium as their
counterparts had.
For instance, while the American elites, cinema critics and scholars were preoccupied
with the cinema’s power of social integration by the early 1900s, in Germany, where
hierarchic class structures persisted along with capitalist modernization, commentators tended
to discuss this important medium’s collective function in terms of crowd psychology. The
Soviet leaders, on the other hand, intuitively appreciated the possibilities inherent in the
medium. Lenin repeatedly expressed his faith in the future of the cinema as a weapon for
education. It could be used among the illiterates and the medium itself was attractive. People
227 G. Gilbert Deaver, “Recreation” in Contantinople Today: The Pathfinder Survey of Constantinople, ed.
Clarence R. Johnson (New York: Macmillan, 1922), pp 264-265.
228 Burhan Arpad suggests that there were at most 30 movie theaters in Đstanbul in the 1930s. Burhan Arpad, Bir
Đstanbul Var idi (Đstanbul: Remzi Kitabevi, 2007), p.160.
229 Ten salons in Đzmir, four salons in Adana and Bursa were included in this number. See Serdar Öztürk, Erken
Cumhuriyet Döneminde Sinema, Seyir, Siyaset (Ankara: Elips Kitap, 2005), pp. 89-90.
90
who would not sit through a political lecture would come to see movies.230 In a similar vein,
Trotsky, who hurriedly wrote a book during a time of civil war on the new soviet everyday
drew attention on the popularity of cinema especially among the youth and pointed out the
potentials of the medium for building a new society.231 However, unlike their counterparts
who were keen to manipulate cinema in the process of state building, the propaganda power
of cinema was by and large underestimated by the Kemalist circles.
As has been evidenced in a recent study, however, some of the early leaders of the
republic too had considered this medium as a “primary tool for propaganda,”232 and strove to
attract the attention of the ruling elite to the possibilities offered by this medium. However,
Atatürk and his close circle did not develop any interest in the filmic medium. Moreover, they
lacked the financial sources, materials and trained cadres to produce and bring film to the
audiences. Therefore the destiny of the cinema in Turkey was left to the hands of the
commercial forces from the early times on.233
Nevertheless, it is noteworthy that around 10,000 people were daily going to a movie
in Đstanbul, the cinema had become more popular than any other leisure activity by the 1930s.
For comparison, it should be noted that in January, 1929 the tickets sold in drama theaters was
counted to be only 17,000.234
230 Peter Kenez, The Birth of the Propaganda State: Soviet Methods of Mass Mobilization, 1917-1929 (New
York: Cambridge University Press, 1985).
231 Lev Troçki, Gündelik Hayatın Sorunları (Đstanbul: Yazın Yayıncılık, 2000).
232 Serdar Öztürk, Erken Cumhuriyet Döneminde Sinema, Seyir, Siyaset (Ankara: Elips Kitabevi, 2005). See,
especially, Chapter 1.
233 In 1956 a group of directors who were tempted by realist film movements in the world would complain that
cinema was seen solely as an entertainment in Turkey and no one could appreciate the propaganda aspect of it.
See Aslı Daldal, Arts, Politics and Society: Social Realism in Italian and Turkish Cinemas (Đstanbul: ISIS Press,
2003), p. 152.
234 Kaynar, p. 195.
91
The expansion of moviegoing into the broader segments of urban population and the
emergence of the cinema salon as a center of interclass, mass entertainment was a
phenomenon that occurred in the second half of the 1940s. According to the Statistical
Yearbooks prepared by the Municipality of Đstanbul, 9 million people had attended to the
movies in 46 saloons in 1946. By 1951, an equal number of theaters were added to that figure
and the number of spectators had increased to 12 million. In 1955 over 21 million spectators
had gone to see the shows in 135 cinema theaters and by 1959, the number of spectators had
reached 26.2 million and salons had increased to 165.235 Therefore, it appears that over the
period both the number of movie theaters and spectators tripled. Considering the data, we
might suggest that annually the number of tickets sold per capita in Đstanbul was roughly 16 at
the end of the 1950s. However these figures did not include the outdoor cinemas. According
to a film historian, the number of outdoor cinemas in Đstanbul increased six fold between 1946
and 1963, from 20 to 122.236
On the other hand we cannot estimate accurately the development of the movie
theaters in Turkey. As Burçak Evren notes, studies on the history of Turkish cinema give
quite distinct numbers about the development of the movie theaters. In a personal report
prepared by journalist-writer Fikret Adil during the second half of the 1940s, the total number
of movie-theaters which were located in about 60 cities was recorded to be 125. In the
235 Đstanbul Belediyesi Nesriyat ve Đstatistik Müdürlüğü, Đstanbul Sehri Đstatistik Yıllığı, 1945-1949 (Đstanbul:
Belediye Matbaası, 1950); Đstanbul Belediyesi Nesriyat ve Đstatistik Müdürlüğü, Đstanbul Sehri Đstatistik Yıllığı,
1951-1955 (Đstanbul: Belediye Matbaası, 1956); Đstanbul Belediyesi Nesriyat ve Đstatistik Müdürlüğü, Đstanbul
Sehri Đstatistik Yıllığı, 1955-1959 (Đstanbul: Belediye Matbaası, 1961).
236 Burçak Evren, “Sinemalar”, in Dünden Bugüne Đstanbul Ansiklopedisi, vol.7 (Đstanbul: Tarih Vakfı, 1994),
pp.8-9. According to one estimation, the number of outdoor cinemas should have been around 50-60 in 1950.
See Mustafa Gökmen, Baslangıçtan 1950’ye Kadar Türk Sinema Tarihi ve Eski Đstanbul Sinemaları (Đstanbul:
Denetim Ajans Basımevi, 1989), p. 104.
92
summer, around 50 outdoor cinemas were added to this number.237 Nijat Özon’s classical
study on the subject writes that by 1958, the total number of cinemas was 650, including in
total 400 thousand seats. Roughly 60 million people were estimated to have attended the
movies in the same year.238 It is worth noting that some other sources claim that the number
of cinema salons and movie attendance should have been greater in the late 1950s.239
Whatever the real figures were, however, it seems apparent that cinema became a significant
industry and moviegoing the most popular spare time activity for every segment of society by
the 1950s.
The most important explanation for the rapid expansion in theatres lay in the opening
of new, cheap movie houses and the development of the working class spectator. A single
move made by the government in 1948 decisively changed the adverse conditions which had
kept ticket prices for movies high and which had stood as the primary obstacle before the
genesis of a native film industry. This attempt of the government, made allegedly in the name
of encouraging filmmaking in Turkey, came in 1948 with the reduction in the municipal
tariffs on ticket prices, known as Belediye Eğlence Resmi, from 70 percent to 25 percent for
Turkish films.
With the reduction of municipal tariffs ticket prices for movies fell considerably after
1948. According to the price list prepared by the Đstanbul Municipality in 1951, the ticket
prices in first-class salons ranged from 45 to 65 kurus, while 30 kurus tickets were available
237 Selections from Adil’s report is provided in Gökhan Akçura, Aile Boyu Sinema (Đstanbul: Yapı Kredi
Yayınları, 1995), p. 137.
238 Nijat Özon, Türk Sineması Tarihi: 1986-1960 (Ankara: Viaport, 2003), p.205.
239 Estimations on the number of movie theaters range from 600 to 1200. See Burçak Evren, Eski Đstanbul
Sinemaları (Đstanbul: Milliyet Yayınları, 1998), p. 194
93
in the second-class salons.240 Practically for a working-class couple, going to a cinema in the
neighborhood with two children would only cost them their average earnings per hour.
Considering that average ticket prices varied between 30 kurus and 50 kurus in the late
1930s,241 it is apparent that tickets were cheaper in real terms in the early 1950s. In the
inflationary economic environment of the 1950s, ticket prices would climb up to 150 kurus on
average in 1958. However, as reported in the KĐM Magazine the soaring prices would not hit
the cinema salons which were “the only social spaces frequented by the poor”.242
Until the late 1940s domestic film market depended upon foreign imports to a greater
or lesser degree. Barely a dozen films were produced by native directors annually in the
1930s. As one film director notes, that French and American made films were often shown in
their original language was another factor which kept the lower classes out the cinema
saloons.243 This situation also would change in the course of the next decade. A wave of
Egyptian films, which prevailed in the 1940s, had longstanding impact on the film production
in Turkey. These films, which were heavy melodramas with musical accompaniment,
appealed to the lower classes, especially to the new migrants in the city.244
Given the success of Egyptian films in the box office, profit-oriented Yesilçam
industry produced heavily cheap romantic melodramas. They were plain and easily
apprehensible, even by an illiterate audience. Consequently, the film production developed
240 “Đstanbul Belediyesinden,” Milliyet, 13 July 1951.
241 Kaynar, p. 195. Hüseyin Avni, “Halk Đçin Radyo ve Sinema,” Yeni Adam, no.221 (1938), p.4.
242 “Sinemalar,” KĐM, 15 August 1958.
243 Esin Berktas, “1940’lı Yıllarda Türk Sineması,” Kebikeç, no. 27 (2009), p. 235.
244 See Levent Cantek, “Türkiye’de Mısır Filmleri,” Tarih ve Toplum, no. 204 (December 2000). For a
discussion on the role of Egyptian films in the construction of cultural identity and national cinema, see Ahmet
Gürata, “Tears of Love: Egyptian Cinema in Turkey (1938-1950),” New Perspectives on Turkey, no. 30 (Spring
2004).
94
rapidly in the 1950s. While 12 feature films were produced in 1947, the number of
productions rapidly grew and reached 131 titles in 1962. Shooting film also became a
moneymaking business after the late 1940s, attracting petty merchants even from Kayseri and
Adana to Đstanbul in order to engage in film production. A film cost roughly 30-35,000 liras
and was expected to return a revenue of around 80-100,000.245
Above all, what made commercial leisure activity available for workers was the
shortening of the workday. Despite the exceptions and evasions, as in the case of Mahmutpasa
textile workshops, the general trend in industry was toward shorter work hours. Not only were
workers more likely to have free time in the evening for commercial entertainment, but the
introduction of the weekly holiday and the increasing numbers of legal holidays made visits to
cinemas at least one option for a significant portion of laboring mass. Zihni Küçümen
remembers the rush of laboring masses to the movie theaters on the weekends:
During the winter months, the children of Ortaköy, tobacco worker residents of the
shantytown, Jewish salesmen of Mahmutpasa, tradespeople, fishermen, young
female textile workers all poured into the streets of Besiktas on early Sunday
mornings to attend a show at the cinema.246
Workers, certainly, used their increased leisure time in a wide range of ways: gossiping
with neighbors, watching organized sports, frequenting coffeehouses, organizing
neighborhood societies, arguing over trade union strategy, and raising money for housing
improvement. Yet for many, going to movies occupied an important portion of their growing,
245 See Adil’s report in Akçura, pp. 137-139.
246 Zihni Küçümen, Si Minör Ortaköy (Đstanbul: Remzi Kitabevi, 1993), p.42. Quoted in Berktas, p. 234. “Kıs
aylarında Ortaköy veletleri, rejide çalısan teneke mahallesi sakinleri, Mahmutpasa’nın Yahudi tezgahtarları,
esnafı, balıkçısı, trikotaj isçisi kızlar Pazar sabahları erkenden sinemaya gitmek için yollara dökülürdü.”
95
but still limited, leisure hours. Cinema was the foremost commercialized leisure activity. As
one trade unionist talked of his leisure: “It is always the cinema.”247
Having seen the growing appeal to movies, small entrepreneurs in large cities
established cheap, small movie houses in poor districts. In 1950 there were 6 indoor (Ünal,
Yavuz, Geyikli, Zafer, Yıldız, Kiğılı) and two outdoor cinemas in Kasımpasa.248 In
Kazlıçesme, the building of the first movie house started before that of the primary school.249
Sewell’s survey showed that an outdoor cinema was located nearby the Aktepe gecekondu
neighborhood in Ankara which operated about eight months of the year. 83 percent of the
persons interviewed in Aktepe said that they attended shows at the movie house and 52
percent said they did go once or more a month. War films, romantic movies and the western
cowboy films were the most favorite.250
The effective system of state censure which was copied from Mussollini’s censure
regulations was a major impediment for the development of a realist film movement. The
rejection of two village films, screened under the influence of Italian neo-realism, Metin
Erksan’s Karanlık Dünya: Asık Veysel’in Hayatı (Dark World: The Life of Asık Veysel,
1952) and Fikret Otyam’s Toprak (The Land, 1953), by the censure committee would
demonstrate that shooting realist films would not be tolerated by the government.
At first sight, the strict government censure seems strange in a period when the realist
movement in literature gave its most critical outputs. However, this attitude of the government
247 Kemal Sülker, “Đsçinin 24 Saati,” Gece Postası, 16 July 1957.
248 I have collected the names from Mustafa Gökmen, Baslangıçtan 1950’ye Kadar Türk Sinema Tarihi ve Eski
Đstanbul Sinemaları (Đstanbul: Denetim Ajans, 1989) and Kemal Ilıcak, “Kasımpasa,” Gece Postası, 17
September 1952.
249 Kemal Sülker, “Valinin 35000 Gecekondu Arasında Yaptığı Tetkikler,” Gece Postası, 3 November 1949.
250 Sewell, pp. 110-111. A famous scenario writer of the time, Bülent Oran, remembers that going to
neighborhood movie theater became a group activity in the Gecekondu neighborhood. Đbrahim Türk, Senaryo
Bülent Oran (Đstanbul: Dergah Yayınları, 1998), p.62.
96
was quite in line with the approach of Mussolini, who believed that in an illiterate society like
Italy, cinema was a much more dangerous medium than literature.251
Yet, it was not the censure apparatus per se, but the public demand which was the
determining factor in the choice of the film’s plot. As one renowned scriptwriter, Bülent Oran
recalls his personal experience in Yesilçam:
I already had experiences from the gecekondu and the factory… As I was living
among them, I had figured out what the people want from cinema. The lower
classes, the poor, the ones who barely make their living; their population is bigger
in our country as elsewhere. They are the real patrons of the cinema.252
The “real patrons of the cinema”, lower classes wanted to see melodramas, romance
and gangster stories, and profit-ridden Yesilçam was very receptive to the demand.
“Fantasy escape from reality,”253 was a commonplace in the movies. Significantly,
they were often set in upper-class environments with glamorous women in fashionable
dresses, confident men in expensive automobiles and luxurious homes. “There are no
hardships of life in the Turkish cinema: No housing shortage, no shanty towns, no black
market, and no problems that a newly-wed couple can encounter,” wrote Nijat Özon for the
1950s Yesilçam cinema environment. 254
251 Daldal, pp. 148-150.
252 “Zaten gecekondudan, mizahtan ve fabrikadan edindiğim tecrübeler de vardı… Halkın ne istediğini halkla iç
içe yasadığım için kesfetmistim… Yalnızca bizde değil, gelismis ülkelerde de alt tabaka, yoksul tabaka, zor
geçinen tabakanın mevcudu daha genis. Asıl seyirciyi de onlar olusturuyor.” Türk, p.190. Oran was working at
the Sümerbank Cloth Factory when he started his career as scriptwriter.
253 I borrow the term from Gareth Stedman Jones, Languages of Class, p. 227. See also David E. Kyvig, Daily
Life in the United States, 1920-1940 (Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 2004), p.101.
254 Atıf Yılmaz’s 1959 movie, “Gecekondular”, which was adapted from a story by Orhan Kemal, was the only
film shot in the 1950s which presented the living conditions of gecekondu dwellers. An analysis on the
cinematographic presentation of the shanty towns in Turkey is provided in Mehmet Öztürk, “Türk Sinemasında
Gecekondular”, European Journal of Turkish Studies, no. 1. Available at http://www.ejts.org/document94.html.
97
The stories of lower classes would be coopted in the Turkish cinema only toward the
close of the 1950s. Until then, films by and large presented a world of material wealth. The
suppression of class diversity and the acknowledgement of the specific economic, social and
cultural experience of the middle classes was the main feature of the Turkish cinema during
the period. The exclusion of the working class and the rise of the particular experience of the
middle classes to the level of public representation promoted the ideology of a consumer
society. Thus an image of a homogeneous population pursuing the same goals was offered
through consumerism.255
The ideal of consumption was also reinforced by the increasingly popular movie
magazines.256 Movie magazines (and cinema pages in the daily newspapers) called attention
to extravagant homes and lifestyles of the entertainment community as well as to the
biographies of Yesilçam and Hollywood stars who had risen from modest living conditions to
positions that were to be envied.
It is noteworthy that the Left took up a skeptical and critical stance towards the filmic
medium during the period. A representative essay in that manner appeared in the Sendika
newspaper in 1946. This was a review essay on the 1946 war movie, “La Bataille du Rail”
(The Battle of the Rails), which tells the courageous efforts by French railway workers to
255 For an analysis of cinema in the larger context of mass culture and consumer society, see Jeanne Allen, “The
Film Viewer as Consumer,” Quarterly Review of Film Studies, vol. 5, no.4 (Fall 1980). For a critique of the
American new labor historiography which argued that the culture of consumption itself underpinned labor
organizing efforts, and for an analysis of the role of Hollywood film industry in promoting mass culture, see
Michael Rogin, “How the Working Class Saved Capitalism: the New Labor History and The Devil and Miss
Jones” The Journal of American History, vol. 89, no. 1 (June 2002).
256 Some popular cinema magazines were Sinema, Yeni Sinema Gazetesi, Sinema 59, Sinema Alemi, Sinema-
Magazin, Sinema-Tiyatro, Holivut Dünyası, Film Dünyası, Film Magazin, Film-Moda-Spor, Seyirci, Đstanbul
Film Postası, Ankara Sineması, Varyete, Sinemaç, Sinespor, Sinefoto, Sincap, Geçit, Caz, Prenses, Senoryo,
Atraksiyon Mecmuası, Sık Perde and Beyaz Perde. With a few exceptions, serious film criticism was practically
non-existent in these magazines.
98
sabotage Nazi reinforcement-troop trains. The film had a great success in Europe and won the
Prix International du Jury at the Cannes Film Festival.
The writer of the essay, who used the pseudonym Ucuz Matineci, said he regretted that
the Turkish cinema did not produce films like “The Battle of Rails, which depend on real
historical struggles of the working people.” According to the writer, because the film
production in Hollywood was monopolized by rich merchants who were the enemies of truth,
Hollywood could not be expected to produce such films. Unfortunately, the writer continued,
“Turkish working class moviegoers who have a significant share in the wealth of both
producers and theatre owners are also destitute of realist and enlightening type of films, for
our cinema is also controlled by Hollywood.”257
The development of realism in Turkish cinema would emerge in the immediate
aftermath of the 1960 coup d’etat. In 1961 director Ertem Göreç and screenwriter Vedat
Türkali came together in “Otobüs Yolcuları” (Bus Travelers), filming the story of a group of
people fighting for their homes. Ertem Göreç’s “Karanlıkta Uyananlar” (Those Awakening in
the Dark, 1964), dealing with the workers of a factory, stands as the first “strike film” of the
Turkish cinema. Halit Refiğ’s “Gurbet Kusları” (Birds of Nostalgia) follows the problems of a
family migrating from a rural region to the big town (Đstanbul) and Metin Erksan’s “Suçlular
Aramızda” (The Guilty Ones Are Among Us) emerges as a "bourgeois melodrama" enriched
with striking visual compositions.
Particularly Karanlıkta Uyananlar was embraced enthusiastically by the trade unions.
Kemal Türkler and producers of the film met many times, and the final scene of the film was
shot with the participation of large numbers of workers from Boya-Đs (the Painting Industry
Workers’ Trade Union). The Turkish Labor Party did not remain indifferent to the film;
257 Ucuz Matineci, “Raylar Savası Đsçi Aktörlerle Çevrilmistir..” Sendika Gazetesi, 19 October 1946.
99
Mehmet Ali Aybar, Behice Boran and Çetin Altan congratulated the producers and wrote
articles in praise of their bold attempt.258 The film was shown in the trade union clubs and
many times Türkali had the opportunity to accompany workers watching the film and talk to
them about the message they had wanted to give through the film.259
Whatever the content of the movies were, the reactions of the audience is another
matter. Analyzing the relationship between audience and movies is fraught with the usual
difficulties of popular cultural analysis. Even if we could see all the films produced in those
years we are not able to know exactly, which ones appealed to the working class audiences or
how they reacted to the movie on the screen.260
Whatever the degree of control of the middle classes and state over the movie content,
the working people were likely to determine the nature of behavior within the cinema salon. It
was not the movies themselves, but the moviegoing experience of the workers that generated
a shared class experience during the period. The cinema provided a social space for the lower
classes. It provided a place apart from domestic and work spheres, where they could freely
express their emotions, where people from similar background and status could find company,
where women sought escape from duly housework.
In relation with the theater conduct of the new middle class in the mid-nineteenth
century, Richard Sennett argues that the “restraint of emotion in the theater became a way for
middle-class audiences to mark the line between themselves and the working class.”261 While
quietness and temperance were modes of behavior valued by the middle class, the working
258 Daldal, p. 191.
259 Kemal Sülker, “Karanlıkta Uyananlar,” Đsçi Gücü, 15 November 1964.
260 For a discussion, see Roy Rosenzweig, Eight Hours For What We Will: Workers and Leisure in an Industrial
City, 1870-1920 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1985), pp. 198-199.
261 Richard Sennett, The Fall of Public Man (New York: Knopf, 1977), p. 206. Quoted in Rosenzweig, p. 199.
100
class public life was characterized by mutual action, vivacity and active socialization.
Working class behavior styles were accorded with and drew upon earlier modes of popular
recreation; workers brought them together when they entered the world of movies.262
The exhibition of disorderly, ungovernable and spontaneous behaviors was observable
in virtually every cinema salon in the working class districts. From the early times of the
republic, the theater managers sought to educate their audiences about the rules and
conventions to be followed in the theater. Metin And notes that in 1924, Muhsin Ertuğrul
posted public notices on the inner walls of the Ferah Theater proclaiming six clauses of
“don’ts in the theater.”263 However, what were seen as unacceptable behaviors in theaters
were regarded as part of the usual conduct in cheap cinema salons. Among the middle-class
audiences of the first-class saloons of Pera, silence and passive viewership was the norm.
However, the working class audiences of the cheap saloons actively joined in the
entertainment presented. They often reacted to the movie on the screen by clapping, stamping
on the floor, shouting and even by exhibiting violence. For example, in 1955, when the song
Avaramu in a popular Indian movie played repeatedly in a movie theater, the Milliyet
newspaper reported, “a group of young people got so angry that they attacked on the saloon
owner and beat him up.”264 In another case, in a Beykoz cinema a young man, reported to be
exhibiting drunken behavior, attacked the villain on the screen with a knife in his hand.265 As
a matter of fact, fights often broke out between young men at the cheap cinema salons which
262 Such patterns of public behavior was also observed among early theater audiances. See Metin And,
Mesrutiyet Döneminde Türk Tiyatrosu (Ankara: Đs Bankası Kültür Yayınları, 1971), pp. 17-21; Metin And,
Cumhuriyet Dönemi Türk Tiyatrosu (Ankara: Đs Bankası Kültür Yayınları, 1983), pp. 45-47.
263 Metin And, Cumhuriyet Dönemi Türk Tiyatrosu, p. 46.
264 “Avaramu Yeni Bir Hadiseye Sebep Oldu,” Milliyet, 23 June 1955.
265 “Filmdeki Hayduta Bıçak Çeken Sarhos,” Milliyet, 16 December 1956.
101
sprang up in the poor districts and particularly attracted lively working class crowds.266
Sometimes projectionists and other workers of the saloons also got involved in the brawls.
Workers of the cinema saloons suffered especially from long working hours that could be
very stressful.267
However, in saloons that drew exclusively lower class audience such informal and
unruly behavior was not confined to young men. The largest group that frequented the movie
theaters was probably the working class wives.268 The movie theaters offered women some
relief from their overcrowded homes. Moreover, the movie house provided sociability for the
working class women. Going to the pictures was often a group activity for working-class
women and housewives; it was a place for meeting with friends where they could chitchat,
look after children, eat sunflower seeds or do knitting during the film. The informality in the
movie theater provided a space for women where they could both escape from the dully
atmosphere of the home, but still fulfill their “responsibilities as housewives.”269 On the other
hand, couples preferred the darkness and relative privacy of the cinema. The seats at the back
of the salons were generally filled by dating couples or other young peoplewho sought to
watch them.270
266 “Balat’ta Sinemada Arbede,” Son Saat, 1 June 1948; “Pendikte Halk Bir Sinemanın Camlarını Kırdı”,
Milliyet, 6 April 1951; “Sinemada Arbede,” Milliyet, 10 September 1951; “Sinemada Kadınlar Birbirine Girdi,
Milliyet, 12 December 1959; “Sinemada Baslayan Kavga Sokakta Sona Erdi,” Milliyet, 21 July 1957. “Bir
Sinemanın Gise Memuru Müsteriyi Bıçakla Yaraladı,” Milliyet, 24 August 1959.
267 “Sinemalarda Makinistler Günde 16 Saat Çalısıyorlar,” KĐM, 6 June 1958.
268 Isıl Karahasanoğlu, “1950-1970 Yıllarında Türk Sinemasının Temel Özelliklerinin Olusmasını Sağlayan
Toplumsal, Ekonomik, Siyasi, Kültürel Etmenler ve Bunların Türk Sinema Tarihindeki Yeri” (MA Thesis
Mimar Sinan Güzel Sanatlar Üniversitesi, Sosyal Bilimler Enstitüsü Sinema TV Ana Sanat Dalı, 2007), pp.79-
80.
269 “Sinemada Kadınlar Birbirine Girdi,” Milliyet, 12 December 1959
270 Hilmi A. Malik, Türkiye’de Sinema ve Tesirleri (Ankara: Kitap Yazanlar Kooperatifi Nesriyatı, 1933), p. 41;
“Öpücük Polisleri,” Milliyet, 5 February 1956.
102
Naturally such lively, yet unruly behavior of the lower class men and women was
perceived to be a moral risk for the middle-class observers of the time. For instance, one
newspaper proposed the establishment of a special security force in Đstanbul which would be
built allegedly on the example of the Italian model and which would police the kissing
couples at the movie theaters.271
Earlier in the 1930s, several observers and social commentators had warned against the
moral dangers of cinema. Especially the wide appeal of children and young women to the
movie theaters were deemed to cause health problems. For instance, Hilmi A. Malik’s
influential study put in a certain way that all the scientific experiments that were made in the
countries where cinema had become a mass entertainment had shown that the films had
detrimental effects on the sleeping habits of young girls and boys. Yet, what was more
striking for Malik was the moral corruption observed among some moviegoers. Malik argued
that the moviegoers in Turkey could be classified in five groups. The first group of
moviegoers was predominantly young people who wanted to see every new film in the
cinema. For this group cinema was not an entertainment or leisure activity, yet became a
serious disease. The second group consisted of those who visited salons only weekends. This
group attended to the movies really for entertainment. The third group of audience went to the
cinema only for good films. The last two groups involved those who frequented to the movies
to satisfy their sexual desires and those who attended the cinema to watch other audiences.
They preferred the box seats, the seats at the back of the saloon, or the darkest divisions of the
saloon.
For Malik, these two groups are the most dangerous ones, not only because “they
prepare their own tragic ends,” but also because their behavior undermine the morality of
271 “Öpücük Polisleri,” Milliyet, 5 February 1956.
103
children and women who made up about the half of the moviegoers.272 Although the filmic
medium could be manipulated as a tool of propaganda, Malik admitted, the moral risks it
brought about should be considered more seriously. The cinema according to this early study
appealed to people that drift along, those who were not able to protect themselves from the
consequences of illegitimate behaviors and conducts exhibited in the films. These people were
children and adolescents, social outsiders, employees in growing numbers, and women, across
all ages and classes.
However, the even less acceptable behavior of lower class movie audiences for middle
class observers was drinking and the use of addictive substances like opium and morphine.
When Kemal Ilıcak travelled to the poor districts of Đstanbul in the early 1950s, he observed
that both the actual physical conditions of the saloons and the morality of the audiences were
extremely worrisome. Poor ventilation, dirt, odor and darkness were the common physical
characteristics of the cheap movie theaters. However, what was more annoying about the
movie saloons pertained to the moral condition of the moviegoers. On the movie theaters of
Kasımpasa, he wrote :
The inhabitants of Kasımpasa complain about the smoke of cigarettes, the smell of
hashish in the winter cinemas. They are particularly annoyed with the Yavuz cinema
in which the seats are either broken or very uncomfortable. Tickets of first-class
seats are sold at 35 kurus. However, sometimes they are sold at 45 kurus. That is
because of the lack of adequate municipal control... At the outdoor cinemas, fights
break out almost every night. Some smoke hashish, some shoot heroin. After the
film one sees many of those who have lost their consciousness and fallen in asleep.
After all, the cinemas of Kasımpasa are worth seeing. Unfortunately, the people of
Kasımpasa have nowhere else to go for leisure.273
272 Malik, pp. 43-44.
273 Kemal Ilıcak, “Kasımpasa,” Gece Postası, 21 September 1952. “Kıslık sinemada sigara dumanından, esrar
kokusundan ve bilhassa Yavuz sinemasında oturacak koltuk bulunmamasından sikayetçiler. Birinci mevki
biletler 35 kurus. Bazen 45 kurusa satıldığı da olur. Çünkü belediye kontrol etmez… Yazlık sinemaların hemen
hepsinde her gece kavga olur. Esrarlar içilir, eroinler çekilir ve film hitamında kanepe üzerinde sızanlara çok
rastlanır. Velhasıl Kasımpasa sinemaları bir alemdir. Halkın bu sinemalardan baska gidecek yeri de yoktur ki
oraya gitsin.”
104
Such unacceptable behavior of the poor classes like shouting, eating, drinking and
flirting were incidental of the larger function of the movie theater as a vehicle for “informal
socializing.” Bülent Oran recalls that the salons in Kasımpasa functioned as social centers.
Families with children often met at the tea house next to Bahçe Sinema and talked. If they
liked “the sound of the film,” they knew that they could enter any time during the show.274
Movie theaters often operated 12 to 14 hours in a day. This state of affairs, however, seemed
to worry only the employees. In 1957, the Movie Theaters and Cinema Industry Workers’
Union made an appeal to the Ministry of Labor, demanding the abolition of matinees after 11
pm.275
Movie theaters had various different functions for workers and unions. Because most
of the trade unions, which were still small and lacked financial resources, used small offices
during the period, meetings and congresses often were convened in the movie theaters.
Unions often preferred cheap salons in the districts heavily populated by their members.276
However, it should be added that outdoor leisure was still a limited experience for a
significant portion of the urban working class. Not all workers enjoyed the shorter working
week and weekly holiday with pay. Many workers had to work overtime to earn their living.
Some workers like Ayten Özumut told that going to a movie would be a fantasy in her
condition, for she often worked seven days a week.277
274 Türk, p.219.
275 “Sinema Đsçileri Haklarını Đstiyor,” Gece Postası, 26 July 1957.
276 Özçelik, p.153. See also, Gece Postası, 8 August 1958; “Tekstil ve Örme Sendikasının Eğlencesi”, Milliyet,
21 August 1957. Cam-Đs
277 Kemal Sülker, “Đsçinin 24 Saati: Ayten Özumut,” Gece Postası, 28 June 1956.
105
Moreover, not all the waking hours spent away from work were really “leisure.” There
was first the necessity of travelling to and from work. As argued above, in many cases this
came to absorb too much time and the journey under the conditions of poor transportation
system was very tiring. There were also the obligations of housekeeping which affect mostly
the working wife. Many workers, exhausted by their work and their travelling, came home
when the evening already was advanced. They wish to rest; radio and sleep filled their leisure
time. Radios were easily the favorite media in the urban Turkey. In 1950 it was reported that
there were 263,135 radio devices in Turkey. Đstanbul came first by 96,770 device in radio
ownership. 278 By 1960, the total number of radio devices would increase to around 2 million
in the whole country.279 In 1962, 65 percent of interviewees in Sewell’s study listened radio
daily and only 10 percent stated that they did not listen at all. The majority preferred Turkish
folk music and daily news.280
Football
Football as a mass working class sport was the product of the 1946-1960 period. The
game was professionalized officially in 1951 incidentally on the model of the system
established in England,281 while hidden professionalism started in the immediate aftermath of
the war, and in that decade it developed its main pattern – with the professional league
matches, the almost complete domination of the game by players of working class origin (paid
278 Cumhuriyet, 20 February 1950.
279 Mustafa Albayrak, Türk Siyasi Tarihinde Demokrat Parti (1946-1960) (Ankara: Phoenix Yayınları, 2004),
p.390.
280 Sewell, p. 113.
281 English Professional league was established in 1882. Hobsbawn notes that English professionalism imitated
the the USA model of professional baseball. Eric Hobsbawm, Workers: Worlds of Labor, p. 202.
106
a wage, like all workers, though a higher one than the rest), the introduction of statecontrolled
bookmaking on matches with the establishment of the Spor Toto Directorate in
1959.
Sabahattin Selek, who was known for his energetic efforts in the establishment of the
trade unions after 1947 and who was the second important person in charge of the RPP’s
Workers’ Bureau, wrote in the first issue of the publishing organ of the Bureau, Hürbilek, his
astonishment at the growing working class appeal to football. His observations provide
valuable evidence for the rise of the game in the second half of the 1940s as a national, and
increasingly working class, spectator sport and for the development of a male football
culture:
Every time I come across with a crowd coming out of a stadium on match days, I
cannot keep myself from expressing my astonishment at the power which manages
to collect so many people together and keeps them standing on foot for about two or
more hours. I know workers who travel from Eyüp Sultan to Kadıköy Fener to
watch football, but do not bother themselves to attend their union’s congress which
is held once in a year… I have seen many who do not get enrolled in the trade union
or the association which would defend their interests because they do not want to
pay 50 kurus membership fee; yet do not hesitate to pay 100 kurus every week to
watch football game. No need to belabour the point! As of 1946, 325 out of 1357
associations which have been active in Turkey are recorded to be athletic societies
or clubs.282
Compared to the development of cinema, sports had a far different trajectory in
Turkey. Whereas the early republican elite by and large underestimated the social and
282 Sabahattin Selek, “Lakaydimiz”, Hürbilek, no. 1 (17 April 1948). “Maç olduğu günler herhangi bir
stadyumdan dağılan kalabalığa rastgeldikçe: Bu kadar insanı bir araya toplayan ve iki saat ayakta tutan kuvvete
ask olsun demekten kendimi alamıyorum. Eyüp Sultandan Kadıköy Fenerine maça giden isçi bilirim; fakat
sendikasının senede bir yaptığı kongreye gelmez… Kazancı hakikaten az olduğu için ayda 50 kurusu kıskanarak
menfaatlerini koruyacak cemiyete veya sendikaya girmeyen; fakat maç seyretmek için her hafta 100 kurusu
gözden çıkaran çok kimse gördüm. Uzun söze ne hacet! Türkiye’de 1946 yılında faaliyette bulunan 1357
cemiyetten 325 tanesi spor cemiyeti ve kulübüdür.”
It is worth noting that Selek was very active in the publication of the Hürbilek and contributed regularly to the
journal. Perhaps due to his role in the journal, Hürbilek spared its back pages in several issues to sports and news
from factory sport programs and organized tournaments between worker clubs.
107
political uses of the cinema, they were more conscious to utilize the sports and physical
education to improve the mental and physical health of the population. As described by Akın,
from the early years of the republic the physical training activities were designed as powerful
tools of equipping the youth with the necessary skills for military service and industrial
development.283 In order to attain the specified goals, the sport and physical education policies
of the early republican regime were directed towards greater state regulation and control. This
state control hindered the development of independent sports clubs, however served for the
improvement of the capability and sustainability of infrastructure of sports in the country.
In fact, during the early years of the republic the Kemalist elite had no clear opinion
about how to handle and manage sport activities in the country. In those early years, the
Turkish Union of Sports Clubs (Türkiye Đdman Cemiyetletleri Đttifakı) was in charge of
organizing the sport activities in Turkey. The Union was established as a voluntary and semiindependent
body whose membership was composed of both the representatives of sports
clubs and members of the Kemalist elite. Nevertheless, the ruling elite held the critical
positions in the administrative structure of the Union to determine the fiscal budget and
dictate the state policies to the sports public.284 State hegemony over the clubs via the Union
developed over time as the RPP used every opportunity to augment its control over sport
activities, and reached its climax in 1936 with the establishment of the Turkish Sports
Association (Türk Spor Kurumu) which was designated to be a party organ with a separate
budget.285
283 Yiğit Akın, “’Not Just a Game’: Sports and Physical Education in Early Republican Turkey” (MA Thesis,
Boğaziçi Üniversity Atatürk Enstitute, 2003).
284 Ibid., p. 54.
285 TSA was the first of the civil institutions to be attached officially to the RPP. For a comprehensive study on
the historical development of sports administration in Turkey, see Kurthan Fisek, Spor Yönetimi: Dünyada ve
Türkiye'de Devlet Politikası ve Toplumsal Açıdan Spor Yönetimi (Đstanbul: YGS Yayınevi, 2003). A detailed
108
During the period, on the other hand, state subsidies for sports were increased,
propaganda campaigns were launched to stimulate the interest of the youth in sports, and
sports began to be given more space in the newspapers. In 1931 the ruling party began to
subsidize sport clubs through the local party branches, and in 1933 it restated the compulsion
that each province must specify a certain amount of payment for the organization of sport
activities in that province.286 In addition to these efforts state owned companies encouraged
their workers to engage in different branches of sports and formed teams including tennis,
sailing, rowing, bicycling, athletics, volleyball, wrestling as well as football.287 Thanks to
these developments, sports and especially football gained popularity. According to one sport
historian, in the early 1930s football became the most popular of all spectator sports so that
the stadiums were incapable of accommodating increasingly large crowds during the 1932-
1933 season.288 However, it should be noted that there were very few stadiums in Đstanbul at
that time and the capacity of the largest did not exceed 12-15 thousand. Nevertheless, those
who could not attend the matches at the stadiums were informed of the scores and detailed
description of the games thanks to the growing coverage of the games in the daily media.
Furthermore, the first ever live radio broadcast of a football match was made in 1934 and after
that event the listeners were informed more easily of the matches.289
story of increasing state patronage over sport institutions in the single party era is provided in Cem Atabeyoğlu,
Sporda Devlet mi? Devlette Spor mu? (Türkiye Milli Olimpiyat Komitesi Yayınları, 2001).
286 Akın, p .57.
287 For a brief presentation of sport activities in Sümerbank, see Sümerbank (11.7.1933 – 11.7.1943) (Đstanbul:
Cumhuriyet Matbaası, 1943).
288 Ergun Hiçyılmaz, Evvel Zaman Đçinde Türkiye’de Futbolun Öyküsü (Đstanbul: Doyuran Matbaası, 1979), p.
33.
289 Ibid, p. 38.
109
Another turning point in the establishment of state hegemony over physical training
activities and sports was the enactment of the Law for Physical Education (Beden Terbiyesi
Kanunu) and the foundation of the General Directorate of Physical Education (Beden
Terbiyesi Genel Müdürlüğü) in 1938. The intention behind the enactment of the Law was
expressed as to maintain a greater level of centralization in order to provide more efficient
instruments to develop sports and physical education on the national scale. The General
Directorate, on the other hand, would serve so as to increase the physical and moral
capabilities of the citizens according to national and revolutionary aims. On this ground,
roughly 200 clubs were either established, or merged with other clubs, or ultimately closed by
the decrees issued by the Council of Ministers between the years 1938 and 1946290.
The Law gave the state a powerful role in the implementation and control of physical
activities because it introduced a legal requirement for all youth to attend physical exercise
sessions in their spare time. Although the content of the Law was more comprehensive, the
obligation was based on the application of certain sets of physical education movements at
least four hours a week. All male citizens between the ages 12 and 45 and female citizens
between the ages 12 and 30 were obliged to attend the training sessions organized by the
would-be established youth clubs. After a 1940 decree on the application of the Law these
clubs would be organized in a more militaristic manner to serve as institutions to prepare the
youth for national defense. In order to ensure a healthy supply of recruits and draftees these
institutions became involved in the well-being of the young population.
Another regulation made by the law, which is more important for our concern here,
was the sport obligation for workers in order to provide them with the necessary mental and
physical skills to increase their productivity and the will to work. Article 21 of the Law for
290 Fisek, p. 312.
110
Physical Education stipulated that factories as well as banks and commercial institutions
which employed more than five hundred employees were obliged to establish youth clubs and
have their workers do certain physical exercises.291 Infact, the wording of the Law which
obliged the institution of physical training sessions for factories with more than five hundred
workers was practically excluding the greater part of industrial enterprises in the country.
However, as was discussed above, many state-owned factories and several private
establishments which came under the scope of the law introduced sporting facilities and
activities.
It is no coincidence that the provision of the law pertaining to the physical training
obligation for workers was issued in the context of growing public concerns for the protection
of the productive capacity of the workers employed in the newly established state-owned
industrial establishments. The advantages of sports and physical education in maximizing the
labor capacity had begun to be emphasized more boldly from the late 1930s on.292 Expressed
often within a nationalist and solidarist framework, it was argued that the protection and
augmentation of the physical strength of the worker, who was at the same time a citizen, a
soldier and a father of his family was the duty of the state in order to achieve national targets.
Advocates of the physical training programs for workers, like Sadi Irmak, who would be the
first Minister of Labor in Turkey, wrote frequently in this period to convince those who were
suspicious of the necessity of providing physical education for the laboring masses.293 In a
report on the German sport system, Irmak suggested that every industrial plant in Turkey
291 Ibid., 310.
292 See Akın.
293 Sadi Irmak wrote several articles for this purpose in the Kırmızı-Beyaz sports magazine in the autumn of
1942. See, for example, Sadi Irmak, “Çiftçi ve Đsçinin Spor Đhtiyacı,” Kırmızı-Beyaz (Bitaraf Spor Mecmuası),
vol. 6, no.250 (12 October 1942).
111
should build sporting facilities and fields, and should include physical training in their social
programs if the country was to be successful in its efforts at industrial development, simply
because of the fact that industrialization required well trained, healthy bodies and minds.294
After the war ended, sports officials, public health authorities and policy makers
continued their writings on the positive effects of physical training and sports on the increased
productivity and efficiency of workers who, if left alone, were inclined to spend their time and
energy by frequenting unhealthy coffeehouses and taverns.295 In another article appeared in
the Çalısma journal, Mehmet Önder emphasized the same point, arguing that successful
industrial management depended on the ability to organize the leisure time of workers. “A
worker certainly looks for a place for creation in his off-work time. If the establishment has
provided him the field and spirit for sports, he fills his leisure with plays such as volleyball,
tennis, football and wrestling. If it has not, the first places where the worker would visit are
the coffeehouses or taverns. Everyone could anticipate the detrimental effects of these places
on the health and morality of the worker.”296
Önder also suggested that every worker should be directed to perform in different
fields of sports according to their job in the production process. Those who engaged with
manual works should be encouraged to play volleyball, basketball, boxing and swimming. For
workers whose jobs required leg and foot strength, football, tennis and athletics were more
294 Sadi Irmak, Alman Spor Teskilatı Üzerine Bir Tetkik (Ankara: CHP Konferansları Serisi, Kitap 7, 1939).
295 See, for example, Hüsamettin Berles, “Đsçilerde Yorgunluk ve Bıkkınlık,” Çalısma, no. 13 (December 1946).
296 Mehmet Önder, “Đsçi ve Spor,” Çalısma, no. 14 (January 1947), p. 43. “Đsçi isyerinden çıkar çıkmaz,
muhakkakki dinlenecek ve eğlenecek bir yer arar. Eğer müessesenin bir spor yeri varsa ve isçilere spor ruhu
asılanmıssa, serbest zamanını orada voleybol, tenis, futbol, güres gibi sporlarla geçirir. Böyle bir tesekkül ihmal
edilmisse isçinin ilk gideceği yer kahvehane veya içkili yerlerdir. Bu gibi yerlerin isçi sıhhat ve ahlakına ne
kadar zararlı olduğunu tahmin etmek güç değildir.”
112
suitable. Intellectual workers also should attend sport activities. Table tennis, shooting,
hunting, mountain climbing and fencing were recommended activities for them.297
The anonymous writer of the Hürbilek wrote in the first issue of the journal directly for
the workers and reminded them that engaging in sports was a national duty for them, and that
it was as important as their engagement in production:
When he puts down his screwdriver, hammer, plumb; puts off the workwear and
enters the field with the uniform on his back; the Turkish worker is a valuable asset
that can achieve great accomplishments. Turkey in the age of machines is looking
for such workers… Take, for example, England. The Arsenal football team which is
one of the greatest of all times is nothing more than a club founded by dock
workers. One of the most popular right wingers of the world, Stanley Mathews, is a
motorcar mechanic. Well, Turkish worker, you should not neglect your duty to do
sport beside your holy duty. You are obliged to do this.298
The growing public concern about the productivity of labor force and the enactment of
physical training obligation for workers brought sport and production gymnastics into the
agenda of factory social programs. As one might expect, the State Economic Enterprises
pioneered these efforts.
The sporting facilities provided by these enterprises were not well recorded. Activity
reports and archival resources about companies only provide some limited information on the
financial transfers made for sporting activities.299 Yet some hints can be found from the sports
297 Ibid, p. 44
298 “Đsçi ve Spor”, Hürbilek, 17 April 1948. “Elinden tornavidasını, çekicini, pergelini, sakulünü bırakıp
sırtındaki tulumunu çıkaran Türk isçisi, sırtına giydiği formasıyla sahaya çıktığı zaman, bu sahada da büyük
basarılar elde edebilecek bir kıymettir. Đste makinelesmis asrın Türkiyesi böyle isçiler aramaktadır… Đngiltereyi
ele alalım. Bugün, dün, yarın en maruf takımlardan biri olan Arsenal, sadece tersane isçilerinin kurduğu bir
kulüpten baska bir sey değildir. Yine dünyanın en meshur sağ açığı olan Stanley Mathews bir otomobil
tamircisidir… Evet, Türk isçisi, mukaddes vazifenle beraber asla spor denilen varlığı da ihmal etmemelisin.
Buna mecbursun.”
299 For instance a 1946 report recorded the overall amount of financial transfers made for the sporting acitivites
in Sümerbank enterprises. According to the report around 1.44 million liras were spent for sports in 1945.
However no details were provided in the report concerning, for example, the distribution of this money between
different establishments and between different fields sports. Sümerbank (Ankara: 1946), p. 68.
113
pages of Hürbilek and sport magazines from which we can obtain some information on
sporting activities of these enterprises. For instance, Neriman Tekil, who was herself a
member of the administrative committee of the Defterdar Youth Club, reported that the
annually organized sport events of the Sümerbank General Directorate had started on April 4,
1948 with a football tournament which had hosted fourteen teams from different Sümerbank
enterprises. The first round matches were held at the Fenerbahçe stadium on the presence of a
large group of spectators. The final match was played in Ankara and the champion team
would win the Sümerbank Cup.
According to the report Defterdar, Kayseri and Nazilli teams stood out among others.
The Defterdar team had renowned players such as Muhlis, Faik, Adnan and Haydar, and was
considered to have the best chance of winning by commentators. The Kayseri team was
another favorite of the commentators that year. Kayseri had strengthened its team with eight
new players from Kasımpasa. Sümerbank sport events also included wrestling and athletics.
According to the report first elections in the field of wrestling would be held between 22 and
28 April in Đzmir. Numerous wrestlers from Sümerbank enterprises all over the country were
expected to take part in the competition. Tekil noted that the championship in athletics was
organized for the first time in that year and the program included only 4000m. races.
However, nine racing events were organized in Đstanbul in 1947 and the successful teams in
those races would compete for the championship in Ankara.300
It seems that these societies also benefited from the financial support of the
government. It is a well-documented fact that the RPP government regularly made payments
to the newly established trade unions after 1947 in the hope of securing the loyalty of these
associations to the party and the regime. However, we have little knowledge about the
300 Neriman Tekil, “Sümerbank Kupası Maçları Devam Ediyor,” Hürbilek, no. 1 (17 April 1948).
114
financial transfers made to workers’ sport societies between 1947 and 1950. Yet a short list
provided by Sülker regarding the payments made to different worker associations show that
sport societies also received financial support, though this was probably a small sum. For
instance, the Defterdar Youth Club only received 2000 liras between 1947 and 1949 from the
money accumulated in the funds of discipline fines paid by workers in the state factories.301
By the second half of the 1940s, workers’ sport societies had spread to almost every
corner of the country where the state industrial establishments were located. Mehmet Önder
listed some of the prominent workers’ sport societies in 1947. These societies included:
Ankara: Ankara Gücü, Maske Gücü, Demirspor
Đstanbul: Sümer Spor, Beykoz Spor
Eskisehir: Hava Gücü and other factory sport societies
Kırıkkale: Kırıkkale Team
Kayseri: Sümerspor
Kocaeli: Kağıt Spor
Konya-Ereğli: Sümer Spor
Seyhan: Milli Mensucat Team
Malatya: Malatya Mensucat Team
Zonguldak: Kömür Spor and other teams302
Each of these societies had several teams formed by different departments at the
workplace. For instance Kayseri Cloth Factory had four football teams established by the yarn
department, the directorate, the machine shop, and the weaving department.303 Women
workers’ teams were organized separately. Competitions with other women teams were
organized to encourage women to attend sport activities. Every sporting society had its own
301 Kemal Sülker, Türkiye Sendikacılık Tarihi (Đstanbul: Tüstav Yayıncılık, 2004), p.90.
302 Önder, p. 44.
303 Idid.
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uniforms, colors, badges and membership cards, all of which seem to be intended to enhance
the workers’ identification with their companies.304
On 7 August 1948, the headline on the front page of Hürbilek featured all four
wrestlers of the Turkish team who had won the championships at the London Olympic Games
who were workers employed in large industrial plants. The media coverage of this big
success, according to Hürbilek, had by and large overlooked this fact. Gazanfer Bilge was a
full-time fitter, Celal Atik was a carpenter, Yasar Doğu was a welder, and Nasuh Akar was a
worker in the Railway Repair Shop in Eskisehir. The accomplishments of these workers in the
field of wrestling had shown the abilities of Turkish workers in the field of sports.305
The Defterdar Youth Club and the Adalet Textile Factory Youth Club were two sport
societies founded by two large industrial undertakings in Đstanbul. The Defterdar Youth Club,
was established in 1941, however it was formally registered as a sports club in 1944. The
motive behind the establishment of the club was described by the factory managing director
Ömer Lütfü Sugan as to “strengthen the friendly relations between workers and ensure that
they make good use of their leisure time.”
The Defterdar football team won the Fourth League championship in 1948 and the
Third League championship in 1949. In 1950 the team won the first place in the Second
League Group B and played against Adalet to win the League championship. The Defterdar
squad was composed of qualified workers employed in different workplaces at the factory.
304 H. Đbrahim Uçak, “Demiryollarında Sportif Faaliyetler ve Ankara Demirspor Kulübü,” Kebikeç, no. 11,
(2001), p. 48.
305 “Kilolarında Dünya Sampiyonu Olan Đsçilerimizin Dördü de Đsçidir,” Hürbilek, 7 August 1948. Just months
after his arrival from the London Olympic events, Gazanfer Bilge suddenly became ill and days later doctors
diagnosed him as tuberculosis. In his column in the Türkspor magazine, Selami Akal would write that it was a
shame for the sport authorties since they could not provide Bilge a proper dwelling. Bilge, like many of his c0-
workers were living in an unsanitary, poor dwelling unit. Selami Akal, “Dünya Sampiyonu Gazanfer Bilge ve Üç
Sual,” Türkspor, vol. 4, no. 90 (17 January 1949), p.16.
116
Players were granted leave of absence two days a week in order to practice in Eyüp stadium.
The Club also had title-holder players in the fields of wrestling, boxing, handball and
athletics. Among them, Ferhat Barıs, who was employed as a full-time welder in the factory,
held the national record in the 1500m race.306
The Adalet Textile Factory Youth Club was one of the few sport societies established
by a privately held industrial company. It was established in 1946 in order to comply with the
provision of the 1938 Law pertaining to physical training obligation for workers. “However”,
the managing director Atıf Đlmen explained, “we wanted to make the best of what we can in
the field of sports and we did not regard the requirements of the Law as drudgery.” 307 By
saying that, Đlmen, as a good businessman motivated by capitalistic mentality, was certainly
meaning specializing in one field of sports. He knew that football was becoming to be one of
the most popular spectator sports and was aware of the commercial opportunities it provided.
Therefore he was ready to invest money in this new promising sector. Between 1950 and
1951, Adalet Spor signed contracts with ten players from Fenerbahçe, Besiktas and
Galatasaray teams. The media welcomed these transfers as it was believed that such moves
would attract more intention to the game and increase the ticket-office returns.308 Before the
acknowledgement of open professionalism those players who joined the Adalet team had been
employed as workers in the Adalet textile plant. Đlmen noted that their intention was to
provide the necessary industrial skills for those talented players in order to guarantee their
living conditions after they would leave the fields.309
306 A. Babür Ardahan, “Defterdar Gençlik Kulübü,” Türkspor Alemi, no. 5 (19 February 1951); Nejat Altav, “Bir
Müessese Kulübü Defterdar,” Milliyet, 27 March 1952.
307 A. Babür Ardahan, “Adalet Mensucat Gençlik Kulübü,” Türkspor Alemi, no. 4 (12 February 1951), p. 7.
308 Halit Talayer, “Adalet Kulübünün Açmıs Olduğu Kampanya,” Milliyet, 20 June 1951.
309 Ardahan, “Adalet Mensucat Gençlik Kulübü,” p. 19.
117
As has been suggested, football distinguished itself among other games as the most
popular spectator sport as early as the mid-1930s. Working class men not only watched the
games, but for several reasons increasing numbers of people flocked to play football in the
years after the War. Nor were unions asleep to this new craze. Several trade unions after 1947
formed their own teams and organized matches with other workers’ teams. For instance, the
Eyüp Textile Workers’ Union, which was one of the first unions organized after the
legalization of unions, had two football teams in 1948.310 The Beykoz Leather and Shoe
Industry Workers’ Union and Pasabahçe Ethanol Industry Workers’ Union teams also came
up with working men and labor organizers eager to play.
According to Hürbilek, at the 19 May celebrations held in Beykoz, the trade unions
also took part in the organizations. The Beykoz Leather and Shoe Industry Workers’ Union
athletes formed a pyramid by standing on each others’ shoulders and other union athletes ran
in 100m and 200m heats while women workers played volleyball matches.311
It should be emphasized that playing sports was not simply a habit imposed by middle
class reformers or state elite upon, or taught to the working class organizations. It was also a
habit which some working class groups were perfectly capable of developing for themselves
when “the objective conditions” were provided and valuing in its own right as one of the
attributes of decent living.
310 “Eyüp-Haliç Mensucat Đsçileri Sendikası Futbol Takımı ile Haliç Takımı Maç Yaptı,” Hürbilek, 1 May 1948.
311 “19 Mayıs Spor Bayramı Güzel Geçti,” Hürbilek, 22 May 1948. Beykoz district also accommodated the
Beykoz Youth Club which was sponsored chiefly by the Sümerbank Shoe Factory in Beykoz. In fact Beykoz
Sports Club was one of the oldest sports societies established in Đstanbul. It was founded by a select group of
students in the Đstanbul Industrial School in 1908. After 1940 the society changed its name and became the
Beykoz Youth Club. The late 1940s and 1950s were golden decades for the club. The football team competed in
the 1. League during the period and the basketball team became the first champion of the basketball league. The
club also had success in the fields of sailing and rowing. In 1948 the football squad of Beykoz contained many
worker players from the Shoe Factory and the club was headed by the assistant manager of the same factory,
Enver Atafırat. See Melih Caner, “Beykoz Gençlik Kulubü,” Türkspor (Haftalık Spor Mecmuası), no. 80 (8
November 1948).
118
It is noteworthy that the trade union press and reports do not give us many clues about
the outgrowth of these sports societies after 1950. It seems reasonable to argue that after the
introduction of professional team sports, as performance became increasingly important and
the state seldom provided support to these workers’ societies, the workers’ sport movement
might have completed its mission.312 If labor sports were to become an imitation of popular
team sports, working class players and athletes might be excused for choosing the latter as it
offered higher quality facilities, teams and spectacle.
As suggested above, in the new era after the Second World War more and more
workers found the time, money and energy to participate in sports. In the meanwhile football
began to gain the characteristics of a spectacular mass sport and lost its functions of
improving public health and equipping the people with certain abilities. The enactment of the
1946 Law on Associations bestowed the sport clubs the legal entity status which released
them from the tutelage of the state. The promulgation of the Act for Professionalism in 1951
marked only the acknowledgement of “hidden professionalism” supported by the increasingly
competitive football clubs at least from the mid-1940s. In 1952 three professional football
leagues were established in Đstanbul, Đzmir and Ankara. When professionalism officially
entered the sports system, it introduced a new understanding of sports as a professional
discipline that required regular training,313 full-time concentration, and rational organization
for clubs and players. So the game became faster and more attractive to paying customers.
Therefore the number of clubs rose more rapidly after 1950s. According to sports statistics
more than forty percent of the sport clubs which are still active today trace their roots to the
312 For a similar argument concerning the trajectory of workers’ sports organizations in Europe and America, see
Robert F. Wheeler, “Organized Sport and Organized Labour: The Workers’ Sports Movement,” Journal of
Contemporary History, no. 2 (April, 1978).
313 Before the institution of professionalism, the routine training programs of football players often included two
days in a week practices. See Türkspor, no. 80 (8 November 1948).
119
1940-1960 period. By 1940, there were 25 sport clubs in Đstanbul. During the 1940s, 38 clubs
were added to this number. However, between 1950 and 1954, 45 and between 1955 and
1959, 30 new sports clubs were established in Đstanbul.314
The acknowledgement of professionalism came as the result of decade-long
discussions over the merits of amateurism and the possible moral consequences of
professionalism. The early republican elite and proponents of the “national sports movement”
were strongly hostile to professionalism since the latter was considered to be inimical to the
idea of developing the average capabilities of the whole generation through sports and
physical education. Professionalism, it was argued, would serve only the creation of a few
select athletes.315
Earnest attention was given to the issue in the First Physical Education and Sports
Council which was held on 18-24 February 1946, collecting a large group of persons from the
ranks of club representatives, public health authorities and policy makers. Representatives of
State Economic Enterprises were also present in the meeting. The opponents of professional
sports came mainly from the circle of Kemalist elites, who argued that it was immoral to play
for pay. According to Mümtaz Tarhan, for instance, sports had been handled in Turkey “in
order to cultivate generations for the army, not to provide income for some people who live
from hand to mouth.”316 Mingled with the nationalist discourse of the time, Tarhan’s and his
supporters’ speeches exhibited class prejudices against the proletarianization of the games.
Sports like education and schools, were a means to impose the predetermined notions of what
are suitable habits and attitudes to the ignorant portions of the population. Another defender
314 Đstanbul Belediyesi Kültür Đsleri Daire Baskanlığı, Đstanbul Külliyatı, Cumhuriyet Dönemi Đstatistikleri:
Kültür ve Spor, 1930-1995 (Đstanbul: Đstanbul Arastırmaları Merkezi, 1997), pp. 88, 407.
315 Fisek, p. 295.
316 Birinci Beden Eğitimi ve Spor Surası, 18-24 Subat 1946 (Đstanbul: Đbrahim Horoz Basımevi, 1947), p. 187.
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of amateurism emphasized that the ongoing discussion was all about morality when
expressing his yearnings for the times when all players had the financial means to buy their
own equipment.317 Professionalism, according to this group, would throw the principles of
fairness and good temper away and force the teams and players to play not for the game’s
sake but for the sake of winning in order to please the paying customers.
The advocates of professionalism, on the other hand, came from the ranks of the
General Directorate of Physical Education, retired sportsmen and, of course, from
representatives of the sports clubs. This group argued that the sportsmen who came
increasingly from lower class backgrounds simply were unable to find time for practice,
travel, and even for the game itself unless their expenses were paid. The acknowledgement of
professionalism would satisfy the players and raise the quality of games. “After all,” Ali Sami
Yen, the founder of the Galatasaray Club, noted, “professionalism is all about maximizing the
enjoyment of spectators. Only by professionalism the degree of enjoyment can be increased to
levels that amateur sports cannot attain.”318 Moreover, other supporters of professional sports
suggested, although it was forbidden to play for pay, the payments merely went under the
table. Entrepreneurs, rich club owners felt no discomfort about paying their players as they
paid their business operatives. To the alarmists who insisted that playing for pay was
degrading the “spirit of sports,” Burhan Felek argued that it was not a shame to have
professional players. This hidden professionalism (maron profesyonellik) was a degenerating
force for both players and club managers, and caused allegations of game-fixing. The
development of hidden professionalism was particularly threatening the sporting activities in
317 Ibid, p. 190.
318 Ibid, p. 180.
121
schools, in economic and public institutions and in army.319 After a long debate, the Council
reached a relatively middle of the road agreement whereby amateurism would principally stay
as a norm, yet clubs were allowed to make contracts with players.
The professionalism debate continued in the pages of newspapers and magazines after
the council meeting.320 Five years later, the crisis came to a head when the Adalet Club signed
contracts with players of powerful Đstanbul teams one after another.321 The death-knell of
upper and middle class dominance of football sounded in 1952 with the formation of the
professional league. As the supporters of professionalism had argued in the Sports Council,
professional play was the natural outcome of increasing appeal of the masses and increasing
commercialization of football. It was observed in the immediate aftermath of the war that
football had become the ruling passion of the majority of the urban population, surpassing
boxing, horse racing and rowing although these too had large followings from all classes.322
The entrance fees to the stadiums probably fell in the early 1950s,323 however, total revenues
from the game increased considerably as more people paid to enter the grounds to watch the
319 See the talks made by Burhan Felek and Esref Serif Atabey. Ibid, pp. 186-187; pp.198-199.
320 For example, see Ahmet Đhsan, “Açık Konusalım!..”, Türkspor Alemi, no. 26 (16 July 1951). “Futbol bugün
büyük para getiren bir vasıta haline gelmistir. Aklı basında bir futbol maçına yerine göre yirmi bes binden fazla
seyirci gelmektedir. Bir günlük hasılatı 50-60 bin lira ile ölçülen maçlar yapılmaktadır. Bu vaziyet karsısında,
bu kadar muazzam paranın kazanılmasında yegâne amil olan futbolcuları artık ‘amatör’ olarak çalıstırmağa
imkan yoktur. Ve bu imkansızlıktır ki senelerden beri ‘amatör’ futbolcularımıza, ‘masarifatı umumiye’ faslından
aylık, haftalık, ikramiye, yol parası gibi isimlerle para veriliyor. Bu isin çıkar tarafı profesyonellik
talimatnamesini bir an evvel çıkarmak(tır). Bunu yapamadığımız takdirde ne futbolcu alısverisine son
verebiliriz, ne kulüplerimize sükun ve huzur getirebiliriz.”
321 “Büyük Kulüpler-Adalet Mücadelesi Devam Ediyor,” Türkspor Alemi, no. 20 (4 June 1951). Adalet Club also
pioneered the institution of professional management in sports clubs. Hiçyılmaz, p. 63.
322 “Đstanbul’da Boks Sporu Ölmektedir”, Türkspor, no. 83 (29 November 1948).
323 Đhsan Karaali, “Bravo Ankaralılara”, Kırmızı-Beyaz, no. 5 (27 October 1952).
122
events. One sports magazine reported in the late 1952 that the Đstanbul league recorded its
biggest gate after the institution of professionalism with around 300,000 spectators.324
Professional or not, football meant something of remarkable importance to the male
working class people of the big cities in the post-war period. As the quotation made from
Sabahattin Selek reveals, for many middle-class observers of the time, the reasons underlying
the working class attraction to sports were inexplicable. It is a much harder task for the
historians since the limited available sources provide no hints about the meaning working
masses attached to it. We never hear the voices of partisan supporters themselves in the pages
of newspapers or reports, at best they are transformed into statistical facts.
Obviously state-sponsored programs, urbanization, the rationalization of the work
process, and the gradual improvement in wages and hours provided the opportunity; yet they
did not compel participation. Why were workers so readily attracted to sport when the
opportunity presented itself? What meaning did sports and especially football come to bear
for the growing working population in the large cities?
We can seek answers to these questions on a more general and hypothetical level.
Some sociological and anthropological studies of leisure argue that recreational activities
compensate people for some shortcoming in their work experience. According to this line of
argument, often referred as the “compensatory” thesis, the intensity and barrenness of work
under the capitalist mode of production increasingly tended to reduce job satisfaction. 325
Routinized, rationalized and sedentary working experience of modern urban society deprived
324 “Profesyonel Likte Hasılat Rekoru,” Kırmızı-Beyaz, no. 11 (8 December 1952). Between 1952 and 1959 there
were three separate Professional leagues established in Đstanbul, Ankara and Đzmir. The National League was
established in 1959 with 17 teams from the three cities. See Türkiye Futbol Federasyonu, Türk Futbolunda 50 Yıl
(Ankara: 1973).
325 For an overview, see Steven M. Gelber, “Working at Playing: The Culture of the Workplace and the Rise of
Baseball,” Journal of Social History, vol. 16, no. 4 (Summer 1983).
123
workers of some psychological and social fulfillment. Through involvement in sport, workers
might seek escape from monotony and dreariness of daily life and their alienating job
environment and find excitement, risk and uncertainty.
Besides the social and psychological change of pace that sports provided for workers,
it also offered a feeling of community and group solidarity. Countering the isolated, atomized
organization of social life in the urban-industrial setting, sports also might provide the basis
for collective participation. In the void created by the decline of traditional recreations, sports
offered new sites of sociability, group action and collective identity.326 Along with movie
theaters and coffeehouses, Sunday afternoon football matches made possible a new sense of
belonging and a ritualistic involvement in a larger group. The creation of identity lay at the
root of team partisanship with all the cultural values and rituals, codes of honor and shame,
and communal patterns of behavior and consumption that accompany it.
What Clifford Geertz says on the meaning of Balinese cockfight game for the large
group of spectators may also be applicable to workers’ attraction to football game. Geertz
argues that the games plays a dual role. On the one hand, the game functions as a metaphor
that reflects and clarifies the broad themes of social life. According to Geertz, cockfight as a
game “is ‘really real’ only to cocks – it does not kill anyone, castrate anyone, reduce anyone
to animal status, alter the hierarchical relations among people, or refashion the hierarchy; it
does not even redistribute income in any significant way. What it does is what, for other
peoples with other temperaments and other conventions, Lear and Crime and Punishment do;
it catches up these themes – death, masculinity, rage, pride, loss, beneficence, chance – and,
ordering them into an encompassing structure, presents them in such a way as to throw into
relief a particular view of their essential nature… An image, fiction, a model, a metaphor, the
326 Wheeler, p. 193.
124
cockfight is a means of expression; its function is neither to assuage social passions nor to
heighten them, but in a medium of feathers, blood, crowd, and money, to display them.”327
Therefore the game itself represents and renders comprehensible the everyday lives and
struggles of those who watch it.
On the other hand, according to Geertz, the cockfight ground also provides spaces
where spectators could identify themselves with the cocks and exhibit aggressive and rowdy
behavior that were otherwise severely repressed.328 Similarly, football crowd violence and
disorderliness has been part of the working-class male culture from the very beginning of the
emergence of football as a popular game. The policy-makers and middle class observers were
more responsive to violent acts and documented carefully the unruly behaviors of the
spectator masses. For instance, when a brawl broke out between the fans and the football
players of the Galatasaray and Günes clubs during a match on 4 July 1937, the state had to
take serious measures against the rivalry and violent acts between the clubs. 329 The fights and
other such events in the matches, the RPP leaders believed, damaged the spiritual authority of
the party.
However, the violent acts in the stadiums could not be repressed by police
surveillance; blind partisanship, hooliganism, fights, the abuse of referees, gambling, profane
team songs and other such “unsporting” features were wholly central to the match-day
experience for these supporters. One unsympathetic commentator complained in 1952 that
every week during the match times the play grounds looked like dumping sites where
327 Clifford Geertz, “Notes on the Balinese Cockfight” in The Interpretation of Cultures (New York: Basic
Books, 2000 ), pp. 443-444.
328 I am grateful to Steven Gelber for leading me into the work of Geertz and to this line of reasoning. Gelber, p.
7.
329 For other examples, see Y. Doğan Çetinkaya, “Bir Mit: Eski Centilmen Futbol Dünyası,” Tamsaha, no. 5
(March 2005).
125
spectators threw anything they could obtain from the peddlers like soda pop bottles and food.
Every week it was common to read in the newspapers the reports of players, referees and
spectators badly injured because of these incidents. 330 The same commentator wrote in
Türkspor magazine that some gate crashers were responsible for the increasing incidents of
fights and crudeness in the matches by causing overcrowding in the stadiums. He naively
believed that if black marketing could be prevented these undisciplined acts also might be
prevented.331 However, not every sports journalist shared his optimism. In the late 1940s and
early 1950s there were recurrent news in the media about “the growing public concern about
the increase in violence acts in football generally” and “the amount of damage caused by
rowdy spectators.”332
Particularly, assaults against referees were alarming. The same issue of Türkspor
magazine was featuring the lastest incidence of violence in the stadiums in which one referee
was beaten severely by partisan supporters after a game between Eyüp and Elektrik teams.
Two weeks later another act of violence took place which would remain as one of the biggest
shames in Turkish football history. During the Defterdar- Elektrik match on 7 November
1948, a player who went crazy with the referee’s decision to dismiss him from field attacked
the referee and brutally hit him several times on his head.333 It is worth noting that this player
was Adnan from the Defterdar squad and was probably a worker in the Defterdar Cloth
Factory as other members of his team. Beaten up severely, the referee of the game, Fikret
330 Sulhi Garan, “Çöplüğe Döndürülen Futbol Sahalarımız,” Milliyet, 7 December 1952.
331 Sulhi Garan, “Bedavacılara Savas Açılmalıdır,” Türkspor, vol. 4, no. 79 (1 November 1948).
332 See, for instance, Halit Tanyeri, “Bir Stadyomun Çilesi,” Milliyet, 25 October 1951.
333 “Yurtta Türkspor,” Türkspor, vol. 4, no. 80 (8 November 1948). For details of the event, see Y. Doğan
Çetinkaya, “Hakem de Öldürmüstük! Bir Futbol Hakemi Fikret Kayral’ın Acı Sonu, 1948,” Tamsaha, no. 19
(May 2006).
126
Kayral, had to postpone the match and go to the hospital. Unfortunately, his condition grew
worse and worse every day and finally he died three weeks after the events.
The sports public was shocked with Kayral’s death. Adnan was arrested immediately
afterwards and sentenced to imprisonment. Sulhi Garan wrote in his column that Kayral’s
death was the result of the tolerance of the authorities to such acts of violence that appeared
every week in every stadium. Kayral also was noting that it would be no surprise if such
incidents reoccur in the near future.334
It is interesting to note that four years later Sulhi Garan’s prediction was proved to be
correct and Garan himself would be the victim of supporter attacks during a game played
between Galata and Adaletspor in the Vefa Stadium. Galata supporters who were dissatisfied
with the score rushed to the field after a debated decision of the referee and brutally attacked
him. Upon the event, the Đstanbul Committee of referees made a statement declaring that such
an assault on a renowned referee like Garan was unacceptable. The committee also announced
that Đstanbul referees would not officiate Galata matches after that incident.335
Many studies on the history of sports in Turkey justifiably argue that sports were
vigorously promoted by state as a leading instrument of muscular Turkish nationalism which
would convey the moral and social virtues of productivity, disciplined society, respect for
rules, and appreciation of the team spirit. Nevertheless, the nationalist, middle-class reformist
influence was a thin veneer, and the working classes rapidly appropriated the game as an
important part of their self-determined culture. The limited available data suggest that instead
of being shaped by sports, young workers actually shaped the sports (as players as well as
334 Sulhi Garan, “Fikret Kayral Vefat Etti,” Türkspor, no. 83 (28 November 1948).
335 “Dayaklı Maç Hakkında Komite ve Hakemlerin Kararı,” Aksam, 2 January 1952.
127
partisan supporters) according to their own needs and culture. This was clearly evident in the
popularization of football. As argued above, the working classes had accepted the outward
forms of what may have been intended by the reformers as a social control device, and
supplied their own lively, unrestrained, many times violent content. It was a working class
takeover, as supporters as well as players, which was strongly assisted by the
commercialization of the game through the rise of professional, paid players, a sports media
and the commercial expression of team loyalties in caps and badges in the team colors.
The Coffeehouse
If football became an important focus of local communities and going to matches an
important part of working class life styles, of course exclusively for men, the coffeehouse
was, and remained, the centre of much of working class male culture. As early as the
beginning of the nineteenth century, the coffeehouse had a virtual monopoly as a meeting
place for men from all classes. Alternatives to coffeehouses were taverns, public baths
(hamam), and mosques; yet none of them could take the palace of coffeehouses where men
could gather without problems at any time of the day and at the same time drink a beverage
that was religiously and morally proper.
The coffeehouse provided the workers a variety of services: It was a place for
relaxation and entertainment, for enjoying one another’s company, for informal or organized
discussion and debate; a shelter to sleep at nights; a meeting saloon for neighborhood
societies, trade unions and political parties; and an office for getting new jobs. In line with
these functions the coffeehouse had three important roles in a growing urban environment: it
128
was a neighborhood center, an all-male establishment and a transmitter of working class
culture and politics.336
The long history of coffeehouses in Turkey is well documented. The first coffeehouse
was opened in Đstanbul as early as mid-sixteenth century and became a principal locus of
socialization. For many centuries it served as places of social communication and
information. As one historian wrote on the social aspects of the institution: “(C)offeehouses
were the most commonly observed socializing venue in Đstanbul. Looking at the example of
Đstanbul and the distribution of these settlements, we encounter an extensive communications
network and system for the conveyance of cultural information that encompasses the whole
city with nodes located in every district.”337
By the mid- nineteenth century, the institution itself was stratified according to the
status of its customers. Some of them which were located in the highly commercial centers
were refined, elegant and commercial places and served as elite literary establishments.
Others, moderately decorated, were merchants’ social institutions and served as centers of
communication and business transaction. Yet the greater numbers of them were known as
“neighborhood coffeehouses,” located in the vicinity of newly growing industrial
establishments and in small lanes among poor neighborhoods.338
336 In this respect, coffeehouses in Turkey had great similarities with the Parisian cafés, Chinese teahouses and
American saloons. For comparison, see W. Scott Haine, The World of the Paris Café: Sociability among the
French Working Class (Baltimore: John Hopkins University, 1996); Qin Shao, “Tempest over Teapots: The
Vilification of Teahouse Culture in Early Republican China,” The Journal of Asian Studies, vol. 57, no. 4
(November, 1998); Jon M. Kingsdale, “The “Poor Man’s Club”: Social Functions of the Urban Working Class
Saloon,” American Quarterly, vol. 25, no. 4 (October 1973).
337 Ekrem Isın, “A Social History of Coffee and Coffeehouses” in Tanede Saklı Keyif, Kahve, ed. Selahattin
Özpalabıyıklılar (Đstanbul: Yapı Kredi Kültür Sanat Yayıncılık, 2001), p.31.
338 Ibid, p. 37.
129
In the aftermath of the Second World War, as Turkey’s major cities were experiencing
a massive population increase, the importance and popularity of the neighborhood
coffeehouse grew bigger as the place of communication and sociability within the new
migrant groups.339 Early witnesses to the migrant settlements in Turkey report the
mushrooming of coffeehouses with great astonishment. When Lütfi Erisçi visited the new
settlements that were growing around the industrial establishments of Yedikule, what struck
him first was the proliferation of coffeehouses before any other social institutions. In his
lively portrayal of the social life in Yedikule, coffeehouses appeared to be principal venue of
the leisure activities of the new migrant workers. 340 Each migrant group frequented its own
coffeehouses where they received the latest news from their hometowns, rested between
factory shifts, exchanged information about employment opportunities and even found
temporary shelter for those who had newly arrived to the city.
There were other observers who noticed that a growing number of urban residents
frequented coffeehouses. Particularly workers’ attendance at the coffeehouses was
remarkable. Many articles that appeared in Çalısma journal dwelled on this point. For
instance, Đhsan Atabarut noted that because there were no state sponsored cheap hostels
provided for workers, new migrants desperately found shelter in the unsanitary coffeehouses,
339 Unfortunately there are no reliable data about the number of coffeehouses in the urban Turkey. In 1935
Đstanbul Coffehouse Keepers Association anounced that the number of coffeehouses in the city was around 2500.
Considering the population increase and the growing appeal to coffeehouses one may assume that the figure
might be around 7-10 thousand in the late 1950s. Depending on the village statistics we may assume that there
were around 20-25 thousand village coffeehouses in 1960. Brian W. Beeley “The Turkish Village CoffeeHouse
as a Social Institution,” Geographical Review, vol. 60, no. 4 (October 1970), pp. 476-477. Even today there are
numerous estimations ranging between 350-500 thousand.
340 Lütfi Erisçi, “Đstanbul’da Amele Mahalleleri,” Yeni Adam, vol.4, no.177 (20 May 1937), p.4. For a similar
observation, see Kemal Sülker, “Valinin 35000 Gecekondu Arasında Yaptığı Tetkikler”, Gece Postası, 3
November 1949.
130
which hindered their productivity.341 Another observer, Mehmet Önder was warning that if
the attempts to promote sporting activities for workers failed, the increasing number of
workers would become customers of the coffeehouses which people often frequented for
gambling.342
A neighborhood coffeehouse was typically a single-storey structure. It was often
located down small lanes and alleys or on a small square and around which were also
clustered the neighborhood’s mosque and shops. The main part of the room contained
wooden tables and chairs, a transistor radio, some decks of cards and a backgammon board,
and a small hearth where the hot beverages were cooked. The walls displayed a variety of
posters, pictures and announcements; included among these might be job advertisements and
notices about neighborhood affairs.
As suggested above, coffeehouses were information centers and forums where
customers came to make gossip, to exchange information and speak out their opinions. This
feature of the institution probably made it an appealing place. However, coffeehouse keeping
was often an unprofitable business enterprise. The customers were poor and prices were low;
yet the competition was tremendous.343 As one might suppose, the great proportion of the
coffeehouses were run by lower class patrons who might be retired teachers, policemen or
working class men themselves,344 a situation which played an important role in weakening the
state policy of exerting control on working class life and culture. Many of the coffeehouses
were small businesses. Yet many of them hired helpers. These helpers and apprentices often
worked long hours and received low wages. In 1953 a group of “coffeehouse workers” wrote
341 Đhsan Atabarut, “Đsçi Evlerinin Sosyal Esasları Hakkında,” Çalısma, no. 5 (February 1946), pp. 57-58.
342 Mehmet Önder, “Đsçi ve Spor,” Çalısma, no. 14 (January 1947), p. 43
343 “Kahveciler,” Türkiye Birlik Gazetesi, 17 April 1959.
344 Salah Birsel, Kahveler Kitabı (Đstanbul: Nisan Yayınevi, 1991), p.136.
131
a petition to the Mayor of Đstanbul stating that they worked 14-15 hours a day in inhuman
conditions and asked for the scope of regulation concerning the right to mid-day break be
extended to cover coffeehouse employees.345 Yet it is noteworthy that most of the coffeehouse
keepers preferred to use household labor. Certainly women did not work in the coffeehouses,
yet small children were the most suitable helpers to their fathers in operating the shops.
Attendance in the neighborhood coffeehouse varied noticeably from day to day and
hour to hour. On the weekdays, many working men visited the place for a glass of tea on their
way to the work at dawn. Workers returning from night shifts also made brief visits at these
hours. In working class districts like Zeytinburnu, Yedikule and Eyüp, coffeehouses also were
crowded during the middle of the day by workers who stopped for some relaxation before
turning to factories.346 After eating their evening meal at home many left again for the
coffeehouse and spent the greater part of the evening there. This pattern was broken on
Sundays when coffeehouses were generally crowded by those who sought an escape from the
colorless atmosphere of the home.347
Part of the coffeehouse’s attraction lay, certainly, in its function as a second home.
What Jon M. Kingsdale says on the working class saloons of American cities also can be
adapted to Turkey’s neighborhood coffeehouses: If the middle class male retired to his living
room after dinner to relax, the workingman retired to the neighborhood coffeehouse to meet
his friends, relax and maybe play a game of cards or backgammon.348 Working class men
generally regarded the coffeehouse as their own private place, rather than as a public
345 “Öğle Tatiline Riayet Etmeyen Müesseseler,” Gece Postası, 4 November 1953.
346 Halit Kıvanç, “Sehir Đçinde Sehir Yaratanlar Arasında,” Milliyet, 22 August 1955.
347 For a literary description of working class coffeehouse habit, see Hasan Đzzettin Dinamo, 6-7 Eylül Kasırgası
(Đstanbul: May Yayınları, 1971).
348 Kingsdale, p. 476.
132
institution. That some particular coffeehouses were frequented by specific occupation groups
was another factor that enhanced coffeehouse friendships. For instance, some coffeehouses in
Eyüp and Balat were patronized especially by weavers, while some others in Kasımpasa were
predominantly visited by tobacco workers.349
Social life in coffeehouses was relatively intimate, informal and open. The coffeehouse
was a comfortable social club where problems were discussed and debated and informal
decisions were reached, where the poor could borrow from the saloon keeper, and a secret
place for gambling.350 Workingmen played games and music, ate and even slept there. Many
coffeehouse keepers let their homeless customers sleep on the tables or on backless, wooden
benches set against the walls of the shop at nights. Compared to cheap, filthy boarding houses
where men slept in dormitory style in long row bunks, the coffeehouse was more hospitable
place to spend the evenings.351 As one journalist reported, in the late 1950s newcomers to the
city could spend the night in the coffeehouses of Tophane and Yenisehir if they paid only 25
kurus.352 More important than the actual facilities was the informal sociability provided in
coffeehouses. Customers of a coffeehouse generally had something in common with each
other. Neighborhood ties, common occupation or ethnic background all worked to stimulate
group feelings and awareness.353
349 Orhan Tasan, “Eyüp Kraathanelerinde Dokumacıların Sözleri,” Gece Postası, 16 August 1956; Özçelik,
Tütüncülerin Tarihi, p. 56.
350 See, “Defterdardaki Kanlı Hadise,” Milliyet, 16 February 1955.
351 Birsel, p. 136. In Kasımpasa many coffeehouses served as cheap hostels to bachelors who came to town to
seek job. See “Semt Semt Đstanbul,” Gece Postası, 20 September 1952. Not only the coffeehouses, but many
restaurants in Kasımpasa functioned as bachelor houses at nights. See Orhan Kuyucaklı, “Kasımpasa’da Bekar
Odaları,” Gece Postası, 15 April 1953.
352 Vedat Akın, “Đstanbul’da Batakhane Var mıydı, yok muydu?” Gece Postası, 13 August 1960.
353 However, this does not mean that patrons of a coffeehouse always constituted a harmonious community. In
more than a few cases, coffeehouses in poor districts became the scene of grave fights and skirmishes among
customers and keepers. For example, see “Kahve’de Kanlı Kavga,” Aksam, 28 April 1954; “Kasımpasa’da
133
In politics, too, coffeehouses played an important role by providing politicians a means
to contact and organize workers. Especially after the late 1940s, the politicization of the civil
society brought the institution on the fore of political confrontations between the competing
parties. Being a working class social center, the coffeehouse provided a natural stage for
politicians and an excellent base for organizing votes. Both the governing parties and the
opposition organized meetings in the coffeehouses. Party local branches in the working class
districts frequently organized meetings and held their congresses in the coffeehouses.354 The
Democrats were particularly inventive about manipulating the coffeehouses as sites of
political propaganda.
A report prepared for the RPP Central Committee by Rebi Barkın provides an
excellent example of the creativeness of the Democrat politicians in bringing politics to the
neighborhood coffeehouses. The writer of the report provides detailed information about the
Democrat politicians’ propaganda activities among workers in the working class districts.
According to this report, in the summer of 1948, a member of the administrative committee of
the DP Eyüp branch together with two correspondents from Tasvir and Sonsaat – both pro-DP
newspapers- and a doctor made visits to coffeehouses located in the broad area between Eyüp
and Cibali.355 Those visits lasted about two months. During the visits the Democrats sought to
get into contact with the workers and listen their grievances. Moreover, Barkın reported,
Meydan Muharebesi,” Milliyet, 24 December 1952; “Dün Kasımpasa’da Bir Kisi Öldü”, Milliyet, 30 January
1955; “Bir Sigara Yüzünden,” Milliyet, 5 January 1955; “Defterdardaki Kanlı Hadise,” Milliyet, 16 February
1955.
354 See, for instance, “DP’nin Kasımpasa’daki Toplantısı,” Gece Postası, 24 January 1954; “Siyasi Partilerin
Dünkü Toplantıları,” Gece Postası, 26 October 1953; “Köylü Partisi’nin Eyüp’teki Kongresi,” Milliyet, 15
August 1955; “Milletvekillerinin Eyüp’teki Temasları,” Milliyet, 26 August 1951.
355 I have looked for the series of interviews in the collections of both Tasvir and Sonsaat from Summer 1948 to
Winter 1948-49. Unfortunately I could not find this interesting series of interviews with workers. It seems likely
that the writer of the report made a mistake in narrating the course of the events.
134
Tasvir and Sonsaat printed those interviews “in an exaggerated and dramatized manner.” The
newspapers were announcing the names of the coffeehouses that the group would visit one
day before the meetings. The newspapers particularly promised that the ill people who came
to these coffeehouses would be examined by a doctor and offered medicine. Barkın also
reported how the Workers’ Bureau of the RPP reacted to this propaganda campaign: “We sent
workers affiliated to the trade unions to the coffeehouses where the visits took place. And we
made them tell that workers could not be hooked with such tricks. We broke their harmony. If
we did not have trade unions and workers attached to the Party, this campaign might have
made great progress in Eyüp.”356
Some coffeehouses also served as private employment offices. An early study on the
Ankara gecekondu neighborhoods revealed that only 1 percent of the bread winners of the
gecekondu households had found their first job in the city through the State Employment
Agency. Neighborhood and kinship ties proved to be more efficient in placing one to a job.357
In the late 1940s, the coffeehouses which sprang up in the vicinity of the State Employment
Agency in Karaköy were places where the unemployed visited for asking about new job
openings from brokers. According to one report, employees of the Employment Agency
collaborated with these brokers by allocating some worker demands to these middlemen. The
broker used to sell the suitable job to the unemployed and share his profit with his partner at
356 BCA [Catalog No. 490.01/1439.08.01]. “Tasvir ve Sonsaat gazetelerinin muhabirleri Demokrat Parti’nin
Eyüp Đdare heyetinden bir kimse ve bir de hekim ile birlikte Eyüpten Cibaliye kadar sıra ile yolun iki kenarından
kahveleri gezerek isçilerle temas etmeğe, bunların dertlerini dinlemeğe koyulmuslar ve bu dertleri mübalağalı
bir tarzda bu iki gazetede nesretmeye baslamıslardı. Ziyaretlerin hangi kahvede olacağı daha önceden
gazetelerde ilan olunuyor ve isçilerden hasta olanlara bedava bakılacağı ve ilaç verileceği vaid ediliyordu. Bu
ziyaretler 2 ay kadar devam etti. Biz sendikalara bağlı isçileri ziyaret günleri kahvelere gönderdik ve evvala
doktoru ayıplamadan bağıslayarak isçilerin böyle yemlerle avlanmayacağını söylettik. Ve isçilerin ahangini
bozduk. Eğer bize bağlı isçiler ve sendikalar olmasaydı bu hareket de Eyüpte çok inkisaf edebilirdi.”
357 Yasa, Ankara’da Gecekondu Aileleri, p.120.
135
the Agency and with the coffeehouse holder who opened his shop to the broker for this illegal
act.358
Another report stated that an officer was proposing the applicants meet him later in the
evening at the “Trabzonlular Kahvesi” in Tophane, where he said he would offer new and
suitable job opportunities.359 In one of the early surveys on the employment conditions of
workers in Đstanbul small-scale industry, Orhan Tuna noted that stonemasons, bricklayers,
construction carpenters, painters and floor layers frequented particular coffeehouses in the
city to meet co-workers in the same trade and inform each other about job openings.360
Trade unionists in general had mixed feelings about coffeehouses. Union members
were regular customers and many union meetings were organized in neighborhood
coffeehouses. The friendly and relaxing atmosphere of the shop certainly attracted unions.
Coffeehouses welcomed small unions and offered their rooms at prices below market level for
chapter meetings and congresses. Even the relatively large unions which had regular offices
often met with their members at the coffeehouses near the workshops or factories. Union
organizers probably had a keen appreciation of the decisive importance of these places for
working class life, culture and politics. However, union militants and organizers also feared
the dulling effect of the intimate and open environment of the coffeehouses on working-class
consciousness.
It is interesting to note that when asked about their free time activities, the unionists’
usual answers were such as reading books, watching football, going to movies or attending
union meetings. In my research through the pages of newspapers and union press I never
358 Nuh’un Gemisi, 14 October 1949.
359 Ümit Deniz, “Münevver Bir Genç Đs Aradı Fakat Bulamadı,” Milliyet, 14 September, 1953.
360 Orhan Tuna, Đstanbul Küçük Sanayii ve Bugünkü Meseleleri (Đstanbul: Đstanbul Üniversitesi Đktisat Fakültesi
Yayını, 1950), p. 153.
136
came across a single union organizer who admitted that he visited coffeehouses. This
ambivalent stance towards coffeehouses echoes the middle class perception of the
coffeehouse as fostering idleness. According to the cultural elite of the time, coffeehouses
were not such places that a respectable working class member might frequent. As will be
discussed right below, social reformers and the new cultural elites never understood the
appeal of the institution and were extremely hostile of the “intimate anonymity”361 provided
in the coffeehouses.
Similar observations also apply to the socialist movement during the period. For
socialists, even very isolated and few in number, coffeehouse contacts did create conditions in
which intimate relations often developed. The small groups socializing in the coffeehouse
demonstrated face-to-face contact based on familiarity and propinquity. In hard times, when
“conspiracy” and secrecy was at the fore, remote coffeehouses were suitable meeting places
for party militants. In times of direct action, on the other hand, coffeehouses provided perfect
links between the movement and the working class.362 However, like union organizers,
socialist organizers also worried about the moral decay promoted through the coffeehouses.
Frequenting places like coffeehouses, taverns and barrooms were inimical to the ideal of
individual advancement of the worker centered on working class institutions of trade unions
and worker clubs. In one of his few writings on the condition of the working class in Đstanbul,
Đsmail Bilen (political pseudonym, Marat) , then the Secretary of the Central Committee of
the Turkish Communist Party, mentioned of the neighborhood coffeehouses of Đstanbul in a
dismissive and disgusting manner:
361 I borrow the term from W. Scott Haine, p. 150.
362 See Rasih Nuri Đleri, Kırklı Yıllar 2: 1944 TKP Davası (Đstanbul: TÜSTAV Yayınları, 2003); Aclan Sayılgan,
Türkiye’de Sol Hareketler (1871-1973), (Đstanbul: Otağ Yayınları, 1976), p. 577; “Sehrimizde Komünizm
Tahrikçileri,” Milliyet, 7 February 1951.
137
Do not look for a club, a bookstore or any other place like these in the working class
districts in Đstanbul! Yet you can find a drinking saloon in every corner and many
coffeehouses in every neighborhood. These places are dens of vice.363
In another aspect, the coffeehouse played another important role in the political life of
the city. These multifunctional spaces provided both place and a pretext for close police
surveillance and control. It is a well documented fact that coffeehouses had always been seen
by governments as sites of unruly and immoral behavior and seedbeds of political disorder.
Towards the end of the sixteenth century there began a series of decrees banning the
consumption of coffee and ordering the closure of coffeehouses in Đstanbul. Recurrent edicts
ordering the closure of coffeehouses came one after another until the mid-seventeenth
century. However such prohibitions and coercive measures were bound to fail in the face of
growing economic and social impacts that the coffeehouse had on the everyday life of urban
centers.364 However, this did not mean that the governing elite abandoned any sense of
responsibility and concern for the coffeehouses. From the nineteenth century on the
governments deployed finer mechanisms that would keep them under surveillance and
control.365
The early republican cultural elites were disdainful of the traditional decadent and lazy
coffeehouse and everything it stood for. The new emergent cultural elites considered these
places part of the vanishing past and a negative influence on the new Republican age. On
every occasion this group of social reformers and western-oriented intellectuals had attacked
363 Đsmail Bilen, Savas Yolu (Đstanbul: Savas Yolu Yayınları, 2004), p.83. “Đstanbul’un bütün isçi
mahallelerinde, kulüp, kitabevi filan arama! Ama her köse basında bir meyhane, her mahallede bir sürü kahve
var. Bu yerler birer batakhanedir.”
364 Isın, p. 33.
365 See Cengiz Kırlı, “Kahvehaneler ve Hafiyeler: 19. Yüzyılın Ortalarında Osmanlı’da Sosyal Kontrol,” Toplum
ve Bilim, no. 83 (Winter 1999-2000).
138
the coffeehouses as outmoded and harmful to the cultural targets of the Republic. As such
promotions did not undermine the appeal of coffeehouse, they launched campaigns in the
mid-1930s to “modernize” the existing coffeehouses and its culture.366 Of course, there were
other measures propagandated in the various campaigns: to limit the total number of
coffeehouses, to restrict the licences to specific areas and to use regulations and police
enforcement to make the coffeehouse a more orderly place. These campaigns were not
restricted to the early republican period, but continued as well after the Second World War.
It is important to note that the offensive against the coffeehouse and its values was
equally a defence of a set of modernist, bourgeois values that this outmoded institution
seemed to be threatening. The coffeehouse generally was considered a social ill associated
with the past. With the development of modern schools and factories and the establishment of
a modern concept of time, the rhythm and norms of life were undergoing redefinition. In the
self-conscious moral universe of the new cultural elites, a “normal” pattern of life meant
going to work or school in the morning and coming home in the evening; being educated and
productive in a formal fashion. In such a world, leisure for leisure’s sake was not
acknowledged. Coffeehouses were seen as part of the nonproductive work and held
responsible for the decadent people who wasted away their lives. Many observers and social
reformers warned about the implicit link between coffeehouse frequenting on the one hand
and health and morality of the working class on the other.
In an aforementioned article which appeared in Çalısma Vekaleti Dergisi in 1953, Dr.
Halit Ünal elaborated this approach with references to the different reports of the ILO. He
argued that unhygienic dwelling conditions and inadequate floor space incited the residents to
366 Serdar Öztürk, Cumhuriyet Türkiyesinde Kahvehane ve Đktidar (1930-1945) (Đstanbul: Kırmızı Yayınları,
2006), pp. 248-267. This study focuses on the control and inspection processes of the coffeehouses in the single
party period.
139
go outside the home, either to the coffeehouses or bar rooms. This, in turn made the lowincome
workers spend their money on gambling and alcohol consumption, which led not only
to moral corruption, but also, because they would allocate less money for nutrition, weakened
the body of the workers and left them open to the attack of diseases.367 It is particularly
important to note that not more than a few middle class moralizers of the time could observe
as clearly as Dr. Ünal that the poor housing conditions of the urban working class men forced
them into outdoor leisure activities.
Even worse than promoting idleness and inactivity, coffeehouses were held responsible
for sheltering unruly characters who were engaged in indecent and unlawful activities.
Coffeehouses in remote lower class districts and in poor neighborhoods were automatically
considered to be potentially indecent places. Such activities were tolerated by some
coffeehouse keepers for the added business they were expected to attract.368 It was reported
that coffeehouse owners and customers deliberately chose remote locations to engage in
unlawful activities and to avoid policemen. Consequently, there was a great concern about
controlling these places which spread across the city.
It is worth mentioning the legal foundation of state inspection and control over the
coffeehouses. Legal regulations that concern licensing and policing of coffeehouses dated
back to the 1930s. The 1937 Law on Police Organization provided the police broad authorities
concerning the surveillance and control of coffeehouses including the power to close any shop
deemed a threat to the political or moral order. Furthermore, some earlier regulations had put
strict measures on the management of coffeehouses. A 1930 bylaw prohibited the sheltering
of bachelors and strangers in the coffeehouses at night. Another bylaw dating from the early
367 Halit Ünal, “Mesken Davası,” p.28.
368 “Dört Kisi Kahvede Kumar Oynarken Yakalandı,” Gece Postası, 13 November 1953; “Kasımpasa’da
Meydan Muharebesi,” Milliyet, 24 December 1952.
140
1930s stipulated that the names and addresses of female employees of coffeehouses would be
reported to the police. Coffeehouse keepers also were obliged to report the suspicious persons
and criminals to the police. According to the Ministry of Internal Affairs, which defended the
regulation coffeehouses, in some neighborhoods of the urban centers they had become the
homes of vagabonds and ramblers. Therefore the control over such places should be stricter
then ever.369
Furthermore, there were numerous reports in the media during the late 1930s that the
secret police and spies recruited from among the local people were frequenting the
neighborhood coffeehouses in order to prepare reports about improper conversations and
behavior.370
During my research at the Prime Ministry Archives in Ankara, I found five intelligence
reports prepared in November and October 1956. These reports include three to six pages and
contain day to day records of brief talks and comments on various social and political issues.
They consist of numbered paragraphs, each of which corresponds to the notes taken by the
informer of a conversation or an individual opinion uttered in public places. The reports I
found were collected in the Prime Ministry Private Secretariat archives, but they give no clue
about who the informers were, how the reports were prepared or to whom the reports were
presented. However, it appears that the inspection reports were recorded by informers in
charge of listening to anything talked about in public spaces such as city buses, streets, tailor
shops and coffeehouses. Workers, students, the elderly, and passengers of the train were the
main groups whose words were written in the inspection reports. That the reports do not
register the names, the title, the address and the occupation of those whose words were
369 Öztürk, Kahvehane ve Đktidar, pp. 451-453; Halim Alyot, Türkiye’de Zabıta (Ankara: Kanaat Basımevi,
1947), p. 933.
370 Öztürk, p.453.
141
recorded make one think that they were not part of the inspection activity conducted by the
secret police in order to find out the perpetrators of subversive political discourse or potential
criminals.
It is interesting to note that these characteristics of the reports resemble the nineteenth
century jurnals studied by Cengiz Kırlı.371 But it is not clear what purpose these inspection
reports really served. In the early nineteenth century, when other means of capturing the
public opinion was virtually non-existent, the jurnals were a valuable source for the
government, which wanted to get informed about what was being talked in the public.
However, in 1950s Turkey, most of the information submitted in the inspection reports could
be reached easily through the media and the workings of the parties and civil society.
Fot instance, take these two records conveying talks made by two different worker
groups in Đstanbul. One of these reports was recorded in a coffeehouse located in a working
class district in Đstanbul. The report states that “In a coffeehouse located in a working-class
district, a group of workers’ chat on the unemployment problem has been heard.” The
workers were worrying about the rising unemployment in Đstanbul. They also were arguing
that the time had come for the government to acknowledge workers’ right to strike and that
the unions remained too weak to claim the basic rights of the workers.372 These views were
expressed openly many times in the trade union press during the 1950s. In another report it
was recorded that some members of the trade unions in Đstanbul were disturbed about the
recent news in the media that the unions in Đzmir would be closed by the government.
However, the report recorded, the unionists were soon relieved and pleased by the declaration
371 Cengiz Kırlı, “Kahvehaneler ve Hafiyeler: 19. Yüzyılın Ortalarında Osmanlı’da Sosyal Kontrol,” Toplum ve
Bilim, no. 83 (Winter 1999-2000); “Coffeehouses: Public Opinion in the Nineteenth Century Ottoman Empire,”
in Public Islam and the Common Good, Armando Salvatore and Dale F. Eickelman (Editors), (Leiden: Brill
Academic Publishers, 2004).
372 Đstihbarat Raporu (Date: 14/9/1956) BCA Catalog no. [030.01.68.426..4].
142
of the Minister of Labor that such an act was out of question for the unions in Đstanbul.373 This
issue also was reflected in the media, and the brief information in the report did not include
any detail about the protagonists or the course of the event.
It should be noted that some inspection reports really included important information
for the government. For instance, about two-thirds of an inspection report which was
apparently prepared right after the 6-7 September events contained information about the
minorities in Đstanbul. The report presented some conversations between different people of
Jewish and Greek orgins, reflecting the anxiety and fear of the minority groups in Đstanbul
after the 6-7 September events.374 Yet it appears that this was an exceptional case and the
bulk of the information presented in the inspection reports was of the type that could easily be
reached through media.
Coffeehouses were spied on not only for informative reasons, but they were closely
inspected and controlled by police forces. As discussed above, social life in neighborhood
coffeehouses was relatively intimate, informal and open. While these characteristics attracted
clients, they also raised concerns about order and social control. Particularly the unlawful
activities -including gambling, smoking hashish, employing small children- permitted by
coffeehouses in lower class districts conveyed a sense of moral laxity in the literate public.
Fahrettin Kerim Gökay, the governor of Đstanbul between 1949 and 1957, fought passionately
against the coffeehouses during his term in office. Gökay was a biological psychiatrist and a
firm prohibitionist.375 He believed that coffeehouses were among such places where addictive
373 Đstihbarat Raporu (Date: 27/10/1956) BCA Catalog no. [030.01.68.427..2]
374 Đstihbarat Raporu (Date: ?/9/1956) BCA Catalog no. [030.01.68.427..2].
375 See Fahrettin Kerim Gökay Đçki ve Melekat-ı Ruhiye: Melekat-ı Ruhiye Üzerinde Tesirat-ı Külküuliyenin
Psikolojik Mesahası (Đstanbul: Kader Matbaası, 1923); Sağlık Düsmanı Keyif Verici Maddeler (Ankara: Milli
Eğitim Bakanlığı,1948).
143
elements could be traded easily and used. During Gökay’s term in the office, the police
frequently inspected the coffeehouses. The primary targets of these inspections were the shops
located in the narrow streets and passageways of the neglected poor neighborhoods.
A search through the pages of newspapers of the period reveals that inspection
campaigns were more intense in working class districts like Kasımpasa, Eyüp, Topkapı and
Zetinburnu.376 Occasionally the governor himself attended the inspections. It is interesting to
note that Gökay’s inspections generally covered the coffeehouses in the vicinity of industrial
undertakings. For instance, a newspaper report on November 1, 1950 wrote that Gökay started
an inspection campaign in the factories and the coffeehouses located around them in the broad
area covering Unkapanı, Fener, Eyüp, Topkapı and Aksaray. Gökay ordered the closure of
several coffeehouses which permitted children to come in to play games of chance.377 Only
months later, he started another round of inspections in the same districts.378 These inspection
campaigns were welcomed by the newspapers and Gökay was praised as the most popular and
hard-working personage of the town.379
Following his takeover of the governor’s office, Mümtaz Tarhan also proved resolutely
hostile to the coffeehouse. Tarhan could not leave a mark during his term as Minister of
Labor, but he would be remembered as the governor who banned spitting on the street and
cleaned up the city of unlawful coffeehouses which were known as “children’s gambling
376 See, for instance, “Kahvehanelerde Teftis,” Gece Postası, 5 November 1951; “Zeytinburnunda 6 Kisi Kumar
Oynarken Yakalandı,” Milliyet, 26 July 1955; “Eyüp’te Bir Hadise,” Milliyet, 7 June 1951; “Kasımpasa’da 6
Kumarbaz suçüstü Yakalandı,” 25 February 1953.
377 “Vali Dün Birçok Yerleri Teftis etti,” Milliyet, 1 November 1950.
378 “Vali Gökay Dün Sehrin Muhtelif Semtlerini Teftis Etti,” Milliyet, 9 April 1951; See also Orhan Özkırım,
“Gökay’ın Đki Yılı,” Milliyet, 24 October 1951.
379 “Đstanbul’un En Popüler ve Çalıskan Đnsanı Kimdir?” Milliyet, 21 November 1953.
144
houses.”380 During Tarhan’s short term in office which lasted less than six months, the
controls in the coffeehouses were tightened and the total number of legal licences was
restricted. Notwithstanding the petitions of the coffeehouse keepers, Tarhan strongly opposed
the opening of new shops in the city. If allowed, he believed, “the new shops would be
opened in dark and isolated locations and would spread dullness and laziness to the whole
city.” 381 He also imposed punishments on coffeehouse keepers who allegedly withheld
exchanges. The governor’s massive offenses on neighborhood coffeehouses might have
worried the shop keepers and the clients, but certainly pleased the middle class public.382 It
seems that the governors’ crusades against the neighborhood coffeehouses tied them closely
with the city’s elite in the search for middle-class respectability and the interest in a settled
and stable urban community. The coffeehouse thus became an area of conflict on which
complex forces of class and values struggled.
Coffeehouse sociability was not static; rather it was able to adapt to changes in the
urban milieu. The working men, it has been argued in this part of the chapter, developed a
dinstinctive culture around the coffeehouse which was an ingredient part of of the working
class identity transmitted through the generations. It was the the place of communication and
sociability within new migrant groups; an address where newcomers to city can meet, an
office to seek job offerings, a safe and warm place to shelter at night. Workers’ coffeehouses
were higly differentiated from the cafes frequented by middle and upper class men and
women by their physical appearance and distinct culture of the constituents. It has also been
argued that the coffeehouse rituals and friendships, intimacy and anonymity provided the
380 http://www.istanbul.gov.tr/?pid=68
381 Ümit Deniz, “Vali 4 Saatte 256 Defa El Sıktı”, Milliyet, 19 January 1958.
382 Ümit Deniz, “Tarhan 6.5 Saat Hiç Oturmadı, Çalıstı”, Milliyet, 20 January 1958; “Vali Bir Kahvede Halkın
Derdini Dinledi”, 22 January 1958.
145
building blocs for social movements. Workers used personal and intimate relationships
associated with the institution to organize in various forms; from trade unions to
neighborhood organizations. It also provided them a place to welcome politicians, establish
patronage relationships through which community members could find short-term solutions to
personal problems.
Concluding Remarks
It is not surprising to see that those who have power, authority and influence seek to
use these to protect the state of things which gives them power. Unsurprisingly power groups
manipulated diverse means to “civilize” the working people in moulds shaped to fit the needs
of modern, developing society.
There were of course many efforts made, some by organized movements and
campaigns, some by movements of opinion in the powerful elite operating through the press
and public authorities, designed to control and regulate all manner of things seemed to them
as degenerate and decadent forms of popular amusements. Reformers were not against leisure
altogether, yet they sought to ensure that it was used in uplifting and improved ways and that
people should learn to find happiness in orderly, healthy and morally proper recreations.
That the working class leisure patterns defeated the legal regulations which were so
defended by the cultural elites and emerging urban middle classes provides the key to
understanding why the elites were never able to dominate effectively the nonworking lives of
the working class. Movie theaters, playgrounds and coffeehouses were too much integral parts
of the working class world to be repressed easily by legal means.
146
Rather than positioning themselves perpetually on the receiving end of outside forces
and influences of a middle class, a remote and powerful state and a set of technological
imperatives, the working people themselves generated their own values and attitudes suited to
the rhythm and opportunities provided in the growing urban life. Furthermore, as has been
argued, they managed to impose their own values and dispositions on cultural institutions.
However, it would be also wrong to argue that working class leisure habits were
altogether antagonistic to the middle class or elite perception of modern urban life. Nor were
all of the recreational activities of the masses disapproved of by the elite. For instance,
visiting amusement parks and beaches were two of the most popular recreational activities for
the greater part of the working class families. The plot of land reserved for public parks in
Đstanbul increased considerably in the early 1950s. Gülhane Park was designated especially as
an amusement park rather than a public garden. In such park areas workers had the space to
use their leisure time as they pleased. The first zoo in Đstanbul was established in the Gülhane
Park in the early 1950s.383 Furthermore, the Municipality of Đstanbul offered many other
events ranging from small concerts to competitions to attract the city population to parks.
From the 1950 on the municipality held a Flower Fest every year in Gülhane Parkı, a week
long festival which attracted hundreds of thousands of people to the park. One municipal
report wrote that it was the Municipality’s pride to accommodate two million visitors in the
park between 22 May and 15 July 1954.384 Also, the public beaches in Moda, Fenerbahçe and
Bostancı were frequented by working class families as well as middle and upper class
residents of these districts.385 The municipality also opened the Florya Recreational Facility in
383 “Sehrin En Ucuz Eğlence Yeri,” Gece Postası, 22 June 1954.
384 Đstanbul Belediyesi, 7 Yıl Đçinde Vilayet ve Belediyece Yapılan Đsler, 1949-1955 (Đstanbul: Belediye Matbaası,
1956), p.121.
385 Kemal Sülker, “Đsçinin 24 Saati,” Gece Postası, 26 July 1956.
147
the early 1950s, which also became a popular place where people often came even from
remote districts by train.386
Counter to the theories which claim that the new forms of mass recreational activities
of the twentieth century increasingly blurred the represented notions of class and undermined
the traditional working class identities in favor of market-oriented consumerist society, it was
argued above that the working classes took over the emerging or existing cultural institutions
and exerted their own values and dispositions on them. As shared experiences of popular
leisure activities assisted to sustain the working class identitiy, studying leisure provides us
the basis for looking at the working class formation in its totality.
386 7 Yıl Đçinde Vilayet ve Belediyece Yapılan Đsler, 1949-1955, p.139.
148
CHAPTER 3
THE ORGANIZATION OF PRODUCTION, MODES OF CONTROL AND THE
WORKERS’ RESPONSE: THE EXAMPLE OF TEXTILE INDUSTRY
This chapter explores the working conditions and terms of production in the shop floor
during the late 1940s and 1950s. Special attention is given to the textile manufacturing sector
simply because in the course of the period it occupied a fairly important position in the
Turkish economy. By the early 1960s, the sales of the cotton textile sector alone, which
included the ginning, spinning, and weaving cotton, were 12.3 percent of all manufacturing
sales and 62 percent of all textile sales. The sector had 14.9 percent of the paid employees
and wages paid to them contributed 15 percent of all wages.387 However, references will be
made to other sectors and the historical transformation of the labor process in general.
This chapter examines the transformation of production relations and culture within the
workplace, and the contributions of modern managerial techniques. Since class as an
organizing concept is intimately bound up with relations of production, any definition of a
387 David Edward Kunkel, “Market Structure, Conduct and Performance: The Turkish Cotton Textile Industry as
a Case Study” (Ph.D Dissertation, University of Wisconsin, 1972), pp. 9-11.
149
working class must engage the allocation of roles in production. This chapter takes a closer
look at the microworlds of production such as labor process, technology and the impact of
labor market character on the creation of shop floor relations. These micro structures and
processes, it will be suggested, shaped workers’ lives in two significant ways: first, by
providing a stage for the construction of identities; and second, by providing a field of action
conditioning responses to policy prescriptions on the shop floor scale. The cultural forces
impinging on the production relations will also be considered. Of those forces the operation of
family and gender influences is particularly important. Especially, when the point at issue is
an industry where female labor bears an undeniable significance, it is an unavoidable task.
Below the analysis begins with depicting a general picture of the textile industry,
followed by an outline the essential features of the workforce in the industry. The third part of
this chapter elaborates on the introduction of “scientific management” (especially piece-rate
compensation systems) in large indusrial undertakings, and its implication on the
transformation of the labor process and workplace culture. The final part of the chapter
focuses on an example of the application of such managerial methods in one particular textile
mill and the workers’ reaction against it.
The Development of the Industry
In the 1920s, Turkey was an importer of textile goods while exporting its raw cotton
and other natural textile fibers. This situation did not change much in the late 1920s and early
1930s despite some increase in production due to the importance attached to the industry by
the government. Government support of the industry started as early as mid-1920. In 1925,
the Bank for Mining and Industry (Sanayi ve Maadin Bankası) was established and took over
the existing government factories (including the only cotton textile plant in Bakırköy and the
150
woolen mill in Defterdar, which was the most modern industrial plant in the country in
technological terms). The enactment of a new law for the encouragement of industry in 1927
aimed at the achievement of more suitable conditions to prospective investors wanting to
establish new plants. According to the law, public purchase of clothing items could be sold at
prices 10 percent more expensive provided that they were made with locally manufactured
fabrics. In 1929, the Customs Law was enacted which contained customs and tariff barriers
especially for the protection of textile production. This was followed by some other tariff
restrictions in 1931.388 The encouragement and protection of the industry showed its effect in
the production increases recorded between 1927 and 1932. While local production met 23
percent of total consumption in 1927, it satisfied 40 percent of the country’s textile goods
consumption in 1932.
The establishment of Sümerbank in 1933 gave a new momentum to the state-led
industrialization activities. Between 1933 and 1950, six large mills were established in Ereğli,
Kayseri, Nazilli, Adana, Malatya and Bakırköy (re-established). In this period the number of
private sector mills amounted to 32. However, with a few exceptions privately held mills were
small capacity undertakings compared to public sector plants. The private sector looms were a
total of 2428 as compared to 3091 of the public sector in 1949.389
In the 1950s, the industry grew rapidly under the conditions of idle capacity. The
government production was under the provision of Sümerbank, which owned and operated as
many as fifteen textile mills and shared ownership in ten other plants in the late 1950s. The
former group included nine cotton mills and six factories which produced woolen and worsted
388 See Morris Singer, The Economic Advance of Turkey, 1938-1960 (Ankara: Turkish Economic Society
Publications, 1977).
389 TMMOB Makine Mühendisleri Odası, Türkiye’de Pamuklu Tekstil Sanayiinin Tarihsel Gelisimi ve Bugünkü
Durumu (Đstanbul: 1976), p. 33.
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goods.390 Yet within the decade, Sümerbank no longer dominated the industry. As an industry
which was relatively more labor intensive and appealed to a mass domestic market, textiles
attracted private entrepreneurs more than any other sector. Private wool and cotton
manufacturing also were encouraged strongly by the government. Taxes on industry, which
were based on the number of looms operated, were decreased, import quotas for machinery
were increased greatly and the Industrial Development Bank of Turkey (Türkiye Sınai
Kalkınma Bankası) was established to help financing private initiates. This Bank which
financed 400 private enterprises from 1950 to 1959 became the leading source of low cost
foreign exchange credits and was instrumental in securing machinery for many textile
firms.391
In response to these and other incentives, a large number of new private textile
factories were established in the early 1950s and many existing plants were modernized.
While in the early 1950s state production exceeded by a wide margin private factory
production in both cotton cloth and wool yarn, in the mid-1960s the state’s overall share of
wool and cotton textile production was reduced to about 25 percent.392 At the end of the
1950s, private undertakings owned 73 percent of the cotton spindles, 69 percent of cotton
looms, 70 percent of woolen spindles and 82 percent of woolen looms.
During the period textile firms were not able to benefit from economies of scale. More
than half of the weaving mills owned less than 100 looms. In the late 1950s it was reported
390 Singer, p. 278.
391 Edward C. Clark, “The Emergence of Textile Manufacturing Entrepreneurs in Turkey, 1804-1868” (MA
thesis, Princeton University, 1969), p. 85-86. Among the various branches of the industry, textiles took the lion’s
share from IDBT credits with 50 million liras between 1950 and 1955. Non-metallic minerals and food
processing industries followed with respectively 29 million and 23 million liras. Zvi Y. Hershlag, Turkey: An
Economy in Transition (The Hague: Van Keulen, 1958), p.244.
392 Ibid.
152
that only four large mills in Đstanbul had more than 500 looms.393 The interior structure
organization of plants was primitive and the great majority of managers were without the
necessary knowledge of modern management and control techniques. High productivity
expressed by the formula “physical production/number of workers” was unobtainable. The
fact that the plants were profitable in spite of this was a result of high market prices and large
demand.
In addition to the large scale production units, there were a number of small hand loom
units scattered throughout the country. There were reported to be 3,799 small scale
establishments producing cotton textiles. The small scale cotton weavers had an average of
2.5 person engaged who were usually owners or unpaid family workers. The SPO estimated
that in 1964 there were 15,000 hand looms which accounted for only 11 percent of the total
production capacity of 706 million meters.394 While small scale manufacturing and hand
weaving was spread across the country, large scale factories increasingly became
concentrated in the big cities. In 1956 around 37 percent of cotton weaving looms and 34
percent of spindles were in Đstanbul.395
Almost all of the machinery used by the industry had been imported from Europe and
Russia. However, there were also mills that manufactured their own looms from local
materials and only imported the automatic shuttle machines. These looms were somewhat
slower, but some employers preferred them for they saved foreign exchange. It is noteworthy
393 “Tekstil Sanayiindeki Kriz ve Đstanbul Tekstil Sendikasının Tesebbüsü,” Forum, vol. 12, no. 134 (September,
1959); “Mensucatta Buhran,” Forum, vol. 10, no. 113, (15 January 1958).
394 Kunkel, p. 27
395 TMMOB Makine Mühendisleri Odası, p.41.
153
that, compared to other developing countries in the Middle East, Turkey appeared
technologically progressive in textiles. Turkey’s looms were 75 percent automatic.396
By the end of the 1950s the production of cotton yarn had reached 92,000 metric tons
compared to 29 metric tons in 1948. Cloth production was at 527 million meters compared
with 128 million meters in 1948. According to official statistics this expansion in cotton
manufacture implied an excess capacity of about two-thirds of what domestic capacity could
bear.
Woolen products with a capacity of nearly 40 million kilograms in 1960 found
themselves in an even worse position in this regard. Demand limitations aside, an added
problem confronted woolen products in that after 1955 the government restricted the import
of foreign wool. As a consequence insufficient stocks of raw materials further contributed to
the tendency of the industry to experience idle capacity. Many woolen manufacturing mills
failed to operate at more than fifty percent capacity at any time after the mid-1950s. Even so,
excessive profits were recorded in textiles mills in the sector were expected to obtain 40
percent return on investment as compared to 30 percent in the rest of the economy. The
industry enjoyed a high level of protection resulting in relatively high consumer prices. Those
firms which had the imported wool allocated to them, on the other hand, enjoyed supernormal
profits.397
396 Türkiye Đs Bankası, Türkiye’de Pamuk Đpliği ve Pamuklu Dokuma Sanayii Hakkında Rapor (Ankara: 1966),
p. 6.
397 Singer, pp. 279-280.
154
The Labor Force
Along with the huge production increases, employment in textiles raised permanently
during the period. The number of workers employed in weaving workplaces which were
covered by the Labor Law climbed 87 percent, from roughly 55,000 to 103,000, between
1950 and 1962. About same number of men and women were employed in garment, stocking
and mule spinning during the period. This meant that roughly 30 percent of the industrial
work force was employed in textiles. With regards to sectoral differentiation, the private
sector employment raised 140 percent while the public sector employment recorded only 15
percent increase throughout the period.398 The geographical concentration of the industry
illustrated above was matched by the geographical concentration of the work force; according
to a 1954 survey, 27,000 of the employed lived and worked in Đstanbul.399 They represented a
slightly increasing proportion of the total factory population through the late 1940s and 1950s.
If textile industry was central to the economic life of Đstanbul during the period, it was more
central for certain parts of the city. Many large-scale firms were concentrated in Eyüp and in
the broad area between Bakırköy and Yedikule.400 Three big firms (Defterdar, Bakırköy and
Mensucat Santral) employed about 32 percent of the textile workers in Đstanbul. The largest
29 mills employed approximately 71 percent of workers in the industry.401 The textile
workers’ union was far and away the largest union in the city taking over 20 percent of all
union members in early 1950. The Đstanbul Textile and Weaving Industry Workers Trade
398 TMMOB Makine Mühendisleri Odası, p. 39.
399 Sabahattin Zaim, Đstanbul Mensucat Sanayiinin Bünyesi ve Ücretler (Đstanbul: Đstanbul Üniversitesi Đktisat
Fakültesi Yayını, 1956), p. 120.
400 According to Fındıkoğlu, Eyüp alone accommodated around 11 thousand textile workers in the early 1950s.
Ziyaeddin Fahri Fındıkoğlu, Sümerbank Müesseselerinden Defterdar Fabrikası (Đstanbul: Türkiye Harsi ve
Đçtimai Arastırmalar Derneği Nesriyatı, 1955), p.34.
401 Zaim, Đstanbul Mensucat Sanayiinin Bünyesi ve Ücretler, p. 131.
155
Union had over 10 thousand members in 1951 and continued to grow in the course of the
decade.402
For women workers alone, the trend was the same: 29.5 percent of all women
employed in plants under the coverage of the Labor Law in Đstanbul worked in textiles in
1950. This ratio underlines the significance of female labor for the industry since the overall
weight of women in the industrial work force was only 20 percent. To emphasize the same
point, it is noteworthy that in 1950, women workers composed 40 percent of the total
workforce in textiles. In Đstanbul this ratio was approximately the same by 40-45 percent.403
When the young female workers under the age of 16 were included in the picture, the
proportion raised over 45 percent of the total number of workers in the industry. Looking at
the data we can conclude that the early 1950s witnessed the feminization of the industry.
The factors that led to the feminization of textiles were twofold. First, employers
believed that female workers were reluctant or disinclined to organize in unions and
participate in workplace struggles.404 This was reflected in the low figures of female
membership in trade unions. Yet, the belief that female workers refrained from workplace
struggles was not always true. Avni Erakalın recalls that one of the major strikes during the
period was organized and led exclusively by women in a wool spinning mill established in
Rami. It was a unique action in the 1950s, for the female workers stopped work for more than
402 Đstanbul Textile and Weaving Industry Workers Trade Union was the second largest union in the country after
Ereğli Coal Miners Trade Union. See Muhaddere Gönenli, “Türkiye’de Sendika Hareketleri,” Çalısma Vekaleti
Dergisi, vol. 1, no. 1 (1953), p. 68.
403 Zaim, Đstanbul Mensucat Sanayiinin Bünyesi ve Ücretler, pp. 135-137. According to another study the
proportion of female workers in the industry was no less than 60 percent. See Ekmel Zadil, “Đs ve Đsçi Bulma
Hizmeti; Mahiyet ve Vazifeleri,” in Đçtimai Siyaset Konferansları 4. Kitap (Đstanbul: ĐÜ Đktisat Fakültesi
Đçtimaiyat Enstitüsü, 1951), p. 31
404 See Cahit Talas, “Verimliliğin Arttırılmasında Psikolojik ve Mesleki Amillerin Rolü,” Siyasal Bilgiler
Fakültesi Mecmuası, vol. 7, no. 1-4 (1953); Sedat Toydemir, Türkiye’de Đs Đhtilaflarının Tarihçesi (Đstanbul: ĐÜ
Đktisat Fakültesi Yayınları, 1951), p. 12. One textile employer told that he no longer hired men since they
instantly got enrolled in the union. “Erkek Đsçi Almayan Bir Mensucat Fabrikası,” Gece Postası, 26 August
1954.
156
a week against the management pressure, and arbitrary arrests and aggressive treatments of
the police.405
The primary factor behind the feminization of the industry was probably the cheapness
of female labor. There is relatively little information about the wages of women, though the
surveys of 1954, 1956 and 1957 contain valuable data. According to these surveys made by
State Statistical Institute, the ratio of females’ wages to males’ wages in textile manufacturing
was 0.72 in 1954, 0.69 in 1956, and 0.75 in 1957.406 Actually, wide disparity between wages
for men and women was not peculiar to textiles. In tobacco and food processing industries the
situation was worse. In tobacco industry women earned 60 percent, in food processing they
earned 49 percent of what men made.407 However, these figures represented averages. The
wage differential between men and women often grew when they were assigned to different
jobs. In some textile plants wage gap between men and women grew as big as 125 percent. In
a textile mill in Bakırköy, for instance, women spinners earned 75 liras in a month while male
over-lookers and foremen in the same department earned 180 liras in 1947.408 With this state
of affairs female worker demands of employers increased rapidly for quite a long time during
405 One remarkable feature about the strike in Rami Lanteks mill was that the majority of the women who
organized and took part in this struggle were immigrants from Bulgaria who had come to Turkey in 1951/52.
Avni Erakalın, interview by author, tape recording, Aksaray, Đstanbul, 20 May 2010. The strike broke up upon
the firing of the the foreman Đsmail Türkbey who was laid of when he stood as a candidate against “the man of
the employer” in the elections for becoming workers’ representative in the mill. The strike was perceived as an
astonishing event in the media for the determination of women to protect and bring the foreman back in the
factory. These 59 militant women complained that the employer had fired the foreman without just cause and
declared that they were ready to do ten years in prison, but would not bow to the pressures. After 17-18 days of
strike and resistance, the employer stepped back and took Đsmail Türkbey back to work. See “Grev, Grev, Gene
Grev!”, KĐM, 29 Mayıs 1959. According to Cumhuriyet the number of women who went on strike was 52.
“Lanteks Fabrikasındaki Hadise”, Cumhuriyet, 26 May 1959. About ten months later, workers in Lanteks raised
another succesful collective labor dispute for a general wage increase. In the first round of negotiations they
attained 15-20 percent rise for different wage scales. Đstanbul Tekstil ve Örme Sanayii Đsçileri Sendikası 1959-
1961 Devresi Faaliyet Raporu (Đstanbul: Alpaslan Matbaası, 1961), p. 33.
406 Tuncer Bulutay, Employment, Unemployment and Wages in Turkey (Ankara: ILO Publications, 1995), p. 276.
407 Ahmet Makal, “Türkiye’de Erken Cumhuriyet Döneminde Kadın Emeği”, Çalısma ve Toplum, no. (2010/2)
p. 29.
408 Ibid.
157
the period. In 1950, it was reported that 81 percent of all work demands submitted to the
Employment Office was for female workers.409 Male workers were highly disturbed by
employers’ preference for women. One trade unionist told that even the heaviest, extra duty
jobs began to be given to female workers because of the growing wage gap between men and
women in the industry.410
The high demand for female labor continued until 1959 when the 1942 decree of the
Coordination Committee which enabled the employment of women in the night shifts was
finally terminated.411 The Coordination Committee was established during the war in order to
oversee the implementation of the National Security Law. The 106 numbered decree of the
Committee endorsed that the protective measures regarding female workers in the Labor Law
and Hygiene Law could be suspended and working hours of women and children could be
extended in a number of industries as well as in textiles. The decree was put into effect one
more time in 1955 against the opposition of unions, and remained in force for four years.
When the decree was finally annulled on May 1959, many female workers were laid off from
the industry, which had already been suffering from raw material shortages and decreasing
consumer demands.412
The proportion of child workers in the industry fluctuated between 15 and 25 percent
depending on the different definitions made in surveys for the child labor.413 Children were
409 Ekmel Zadil, “Đs ve Đsçi Bulma Hizmeti,” p. 31.
410 “Ücretlerde Cinsiyet Farkı ve Gece Đsçilerinin Durumu,” Aksam, 2 Ağustos 1951
411 Acording to Labor Code, Article 50 women and children could not be put to work in the night shifts in any
circumstance. Muhaddere Gönenli, Fransa’da ve Türkiye’de Kadının Çalısma Sartları Üzerine Mukayeseli Bir
Tetkik (Ankara: Son Havadis Matbaası, 1955).
412 Kemal Sülker, “Kadın Đsçiler ve Gece Mesaisi,” Gece Postası, 7 May 1959; “Đhbar Ediyoruz: Tekstil Đsçileri
Kanuna Aykırı Çalıstırılıyor,” Gece Postası, 29 May 1959. The influential Forum magazine reported that the
unemployment in textiles reached as high as 25 percent in the late 1956. “Đssizlik Var mı, Yok mu,” Forum, vol.
5, no. 60 (15 September 1956).
413 Zaim, Đstanbul Mensucat Sanayiinin Bünyesi ve Ücretler, p. 141.
158
often employed in preparation departments (shaping and carding departments) and the work
they performed was always exhausting. In the Karamürsel Cotton Textile Mill workers said
that child workers employed in the shaping department walked around 40 kilometers in a day
when tending machines and carrying heavy bobbins.414
This comparatively high ratio of female and child employment in the industry was
affected particularly by the prevalence of family hiring in textiles. Observations by
contemporaries confirm the quantitative findings revealing that the family played an enduring
role in the organization of work within the mills. For example, Kemal Sülker noted that about
half of the employed in the textile sector came from the same family.415 Sülker’s report might
be a bit exaggeration, but all the evidence reveals that the family hiring system was a
prevalent feature of the industry throughout the period. The family was simultaneously a unit
of economic support and a unit of exploitation. The families whose members all worked in the
mill were comparatively well off and had some economic security across generations.416 On
the other hand, kinship ties were utilized effectively by employers for control and production
purposes. In the workplaces where extended family networks prevailed, the patrons did not
usually directly supervise the production process, but rather had it done by a worker foreman,
a person both friendly with the employer and very close terms with the workers.417 This
414 “Karamürsel Mensucat Fabrikası Đsçileri Nasıl Çalısıyorlar, Ne Söylüyorlar?” Gece Postası, 14 November
1949.
415 Kemal Sülker, “Tekstil Asgari Ücretine Đsverenlerin Tespit Ettiği 3 Đtiraz,” Gece Postası, 22 February 1958.
The extent and importance of this phenomenon in textile sector has been particularly emphasized in the French
and British labor historiographies. See William M. Reddy, “Family and Factory: French Linen Weavers in the
Belle Epoque,” Journal of Social History, vol. 8, no. 2 (1975). For a historical narrative on German female
workers in textile mills, see Kathleen Canning, Languages of Labor and Gender: Female Factory Work in
Germany, 1850-1914 (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2002).
416 Kemal Sülker, “Đsçinin 24 Saati,” Gece Postası, 22 March 1954.
417 Alan Debetsky, “Kinship, Primordial Ties, and Factory Organization in Turkey: An Anthropological View,”
International Journal of Middle East Studies, vol. 7, no. 3 (July 1976), p. 441.
159
pattern of recruitment was preferred frequently by small scale employers. The consequences
of this inclination shall be discussed in detail below.
It is noteworthy that there was a certain gender demarcation crystallized around
machinery. Most women and also children were employed in the spinning mills or in the
spinning departments of integrated plants. Some other female workers worked in weaving
factories often as darners, carders and reelers rather than as weavers, since weaving required a
stable and trained workforce and was often reserved for skilled or semi-skilled male workers.
The foremen and over-lookers were almost always men. Actually the main determinants of
skill were age and duration of service in the industry, and women workers tended to stay short
time in the mills compared to men. However, gender demarcation within the mill was not
necessarily a barrier before the joint action of workers as was the case in Lanteks wool
spinning mill where, as we have seen, the foreman was male and the operatives were almost
exclusively women.
The skill profile of workers is very problematic. Zaim listed 10-38 percent of workers
as skilled, 20 percent as unskilled and the remaining as semi-skilled in textiles. However, it is
necessary to add immediately that these categories were not based on any solid grounds by
Zaim. As Zaim himself noted, no “scientific studies” had been made in order to develop a
skill profile of workers in the 1950s.418 Yet it is not hard to understand how workers thought
of themselves and each other. The highly skilled and unskilled in a textile mill were service
personnel and auxiliary workers respectively. However, by their sheer weight of numbers and
performance, weavers were the most significant group regarded as “highly skilled” by both
workers and employers. Of course, weavers never functioned as independent artisans and the
discretion content of their work was minimal and limited almost exclusively to questions of
418 Zaim, p.145.
160
pace. Moreover, they witnessed to the degradation of their work in the course of the decade
with technological modernization in the industry. Yet, combined with the difficulty to gaining
access to their ranks and their higher level of education, the limited autonomy that the
weavers could enjoy elevated them in the eyes of their fellow workers. Weavers were usually
the most experienced workers in the mills; their duration of work was often longer and the
scarcity of their labor had always been felt in the market during the period.419 Weaving looms
often broke down due to the use of low quality yarn, power cut-outs and lack of
standardization both in machines and in other raw materials that were used in production.
Experienced weavers were expected to fix the machines whenever a problem occurred at the
point of production. Weaving required hard labor. Weavers had to be strong enough to carry
cloth batches and be able to work with full concentration under the deafening noise of the
machines. 80 percent of weavers who served more than ten years in trade were known to be
suffering from noise-induced hearing loss. Cotton fiber filled the air in some shops and people
who worked in them constantly suffered from respiratory disorders or diseases such as
tuberculosis.
The physical difficulties and skill demands of the work put weavers in a relatively
advantageous position in the shop floor bargaining process. As one trade union militant said,
they were also the ones who took the leading role in shop floor struggles and in the
organization of workers in the trade unions.420 We shall see below that the most significant
shop floor struggles during the period turned around the employers’ constant attempts to
impose managerial control and discipline over the weavers’ work practices in order to
419 A brief look at the advertisements in Milliyet and Gece Postası reveal that weavers with scarce trade had good
employment prospects.
420 Avni Erakalın, interview by author, tape recording, Aksaray, Đstanbul.
161
improve productivity, and weavers’ responses to retain their control over the pace of the
work.
Throughout the 1940s and 1950s, contemporaries conceived that the backward
structure of industrial wages reflected Turkey’s early stage of industrial development.421 The
statistics shows that while the average real wages in textiles fell sharply by 41 percent
between 1938 and 1943 due to the war, they underwent a gradual recovery until 1948/9.
Probably with the positive effect of the election of a new government in 1950 as well as with
the boosting of demand for textile products during the Korean War, average real wages made
a peak in 1951/52. After that period, real wages recorded slight reductions until 1954 to the
same levels in 1950.422
In 1954, the minimum wage in textiles was determined for the first time in Đstanbul by
a local commission set up by the Ministry of Labor. The commission consisted of the regional
labor director, two representatives of workers and employers, an attendant from the
municipality, and a delegate from local chamber of commerce.423 Notwithstanding the
recurrent calls of the union to set the minimum wage at 70 kurus per hour, the commission
determined it as 50 kurus per hour.424 This was close to the 45 kurus per hour proposal of the
421 Rebi Barkın, “Đsçi Gündelikleri ve Đsçinin Geçim Davası”, Hürbilek, no. 3 (15 May 1948).
422 Sabahaddin Zaim, “Türkiye Mensucat Sanayiinde Ücretler”, in Sosyal Siyaset Konfernsları Sekizinci Kitap
(Đstanbul: 1955), p. 39. Yet it is worth mentioning that the real wage increases in textiles after the war fell behind
the increases in overall industrial wages. It seems that “the surplus army of labor” created by the mass migration
to the cities had kept the wages low in this sector which required a limited number of trained labor force.
423 Adana deputy Rıza Tekeli complained in the parliament that three members of the minimum wage
commission in Adana represented employers, for the attendant from the municipality was also an employer and a
member of the chamber of commerce. Therefore, Tekeli argued, the decisions of the commission had always
been in favor of employers. TBMM Tutanak Dergisi, term 11, vol. 7, 26 February 1959, p. 1049.
424 Article 32 of the Labor Code stipulated that the regulations be made to fix the minimum wages rates (by the
hour, day, week or at piece rates) by the Ministry of Economy in view of economic and social requirements.
However not until 1951 did the governments made any attempts to set minimum wages. In early 1954 minimum
wages were determined in six cities including Đstanbul, Đzmir and Seyhan for for workers employed in textile,
tobacco processing, cotton ginning, flour and bread, oil and soap, and media industries. By 1958, however,
minimum wage practice covered 29 cities for workers employed in 18 sectors including rubber works, leather
162
employers’ delegates.425 Four years later, in February 1958, the minimum wage commission
convened again to overview the practice and set new minimum wages.426 In the meantime,
textile workers’ trade unions were complaining that wages were too low in the industry and
worker households would still be worse off economically unless a substantial increase in
minimum wages took place. On the other hand, employers represented by the Đstanbul
Chamber of Industry argued that since family hiring was prevalent in the industry minimum
wage for children could be much lower.427 After the first round of meetings the commission
set the minimum wage for textile workers as 100 kurus per hour without discriminating
between child and adult workers. However, the textile employers were not ready to admit
defeat quietly. The Chamber of Industry appealed to the Ministry of Labor in the very heat of
the moment and a delegation of textile employers travelled to Ankara to lobby among the
politicians. In the face of this pressure, the ministry could not hold strongly to the decision
taken by minimum wage commission. On 14 March the Ministry of Labor announced that the
minimum wage for textile industry was to be 80 kurus for adults and 65 kurus for children.428
According to one estimation, the minimum wage in textile sector was roughly half of the
and shoe, cement and lime industries, sand and stone pits, and ship crew. See Minister of Labor Hayrettin
Erkmen’s speech in GNA. TBMM Tutanak Dergisi, term 11, vol. 2, 31 January 1958, pp. 599-600. It is
interesting to note that at least in one sector workers managed to convince employers to make collective
bargaining contracts and fix minimum wages. According to the contract made between Petroleum Workers
Trade Union (Petrol-Đs and employers in 1958, the minimum daily wage was fixed at 856 kurus. See “Petrol-Đs
Kolundan Asgari Đsçi Ücreti Çalısmaları”, Petrol-is, no. 10 (November 1958).
425 “Đsçi Ücretlerinin Tespiti Đsinde Mühim Merhale,” Gece Postası, 25 May 1954.
426 The commission ought to convene and revise the minimum wages in 1956. However, the employers appealed
to Minimum Wage Appeal Commission in Ankara and hindered the determnation of new wage levels. See
“Tekstil isçileri Asgari Ücret Davasının Artık Hallini Đstiyor,” Gece Postası, 6 June 1957.
427 Kemal Sülker, “Mensucat Đskolunda Asgari Ücret Meselesi,” Gece Postası, 9 February 1958; “Tekstil Asgari
Ücretine Sanayi Odasının Tespit Ettiği Üç Đtiraz,” Gece Postası, 22 February 1958.
428 Kemal Sülker, “Asgari Ücret Tespiti ve Đsverenler,” Gece Postası, 1 March 1958; “Asgari Ücretler,” Gece
Postası, 14 March 1958.
163
average wage in overall manufacturing sector in 1958.429 After that year real wages recorded a
slow and steady movement upwards throughout the decade.
Business fluctuations had immediate effects on employment levels and wages. “The
great wave of unemployment in textiles,” for instance, drove wages down in many cotton
mills in 1956-57.430 Collective labor disputes for wage increase did not soar as much as one
might expect. Yet this was only because the trade union had seen that the arbitration system
without the right to strike did not create positive results for workers.431 Nevertheless, conflict
could not always be confined within official parameters. Infact, the textile sector was in the
first place in the league of collective labor disputes during the decade. Most of these disputes
were over pay in some way or other. According to the lists provided by the textile workers’
trade union nearly ninety percent of labor disputes were about pay. As will be discussed in
length in the following chapter, collective disputes between workers and employers were
settled through the functioning of a conciliation/arbitration mechanism. Although the process
was very complicated and excluded certain segments of the working class population, workers
could manipulate successfully the mechanism to increase their incomes. According to the
429 Makal, Türkiye’de Çok Partili Dönemde Çalısma Đliskileri, p. 498.
430 “Tekstil Đsçileri Umumi Zam Đstiyorlar”, Gece Postası, 14 May 1957; “Tekstil Đsçileri Asgari 720 Kurus
Almalı”, Gece Postası, 20 May 1957. A report prepared by the Ministry of Labor in 1956 provides a detailed list
of workplaces that laid-off their workers. According to the report 5770 textile workers were displaced only
during the first eight months of 1956. It also was noted that another 2000 workers were laid-off from the small
scale textile workshops located in Mahmutpasa. BCA [Catalog no. 30.01.0.0/ 87.544.10]
431 “Bir yandan kolektif akitleri doğuracak GREV HAKKI’nın verilmesi için lüzumlu sartlara henüz
kavusulmadığını iddia eden makamlar diğer taraftan tatbikatından sorumlu bulundukları Tahkim müessesesinin
kesmekesliğine seyirci kalmaktadırlar. Đsverenler Hakem kurullarının kaplumbağa süratine güvendikleri için
eski devirlerde olduğu gibi sendika ile uzlasmağa ehemmiyet vermemekte ve sosyal meselelere vukufları tam
olmayan hakem kurulları mensuplarının bu anlayıslarına dayanan çalısmaları nedeniyle hallerinden memnun
yasamaktadırlar. Bu durum sendikamızı uzun uzun düsündürdüğünden “issizlik krizi esnasında ihtilaf
çıkarmama konusunda aldığımız prensip kararının da tesiriyle” toplu is ihtilafına fazla rağbet edilmemistir.”
Đstanbul Tekstil ve Örme Sanayii Đsçileri Sendikası, 1956-1957 Devresi Faaliyet Raporu (Đstanbul: Sulhi Garan
Matbaası, 1957), p.7.
164
statistics provided by the textile trade union, about 75 percent of industrial disputes settled
through arbitration mechanism in 1956-57 wholly or partly ended in favor of the workers.432
However, it is a well documented fact that in some large scale private mills as well as
in public sector mills fringe benefits and production bonuses contributed dramatically to the
earnings. For example, in late 1940s and in 1950s fringe benefits composed around 20-30
percent of the earnings of employees in Sümerbank establishments.433 Moreover, their tax
burden was lower than that of private sector workers. In the Adalet Mensucat, workers
complained about the unfair distribution of the tax burden between these two sectors. The
income tax rate paid by workers at the Adalet Mensucat was 7 percent, while the rate was 5
percent for the workers in the nearby Sümerbank Defterdar mill.434
Broad differences between the wages of workers were another characteristic of the
industry. According to one observer, the hourly earnings of male workers fluctuated between
62 kurus and 228 kurus in the second half of the decade.435 It was reported that in some
companies up to 70 percent of workers earned less than the average earnings in early 1950s.
For instance, in the Bahariye Textile Mill, which was one of the first large scale private mills
established in Eyüp, 71 percent of workers were paid less than the average wage level in the
factory. In the Adalet Mill from the same region the ratio was around 45 percent. In Nurullah
432 Ibid., p. 21.
433 Ahmet Makal, “Türkiye’nin Sanayilesme Sürecinde Đsgücü Sorunu, Sosyal Politika ve Đktisadi Devlet
Tesekkülleri: 1930’lu ve 1940’lı Yıllar”, Toplum ve Bilim, no. 92 (Spring 2002), p. 49. See also Sefik Ungun,
“Devlet Đsletmelerinde Ücret ve Munzam Ücret Mahiyetindeki Sosyal Yardımlar”, Mensucat Meslek Dergisi,
vol. 3, no. 9 (September 1950). However, we sould also note that there were wide wage differences between
Sümerbank establisments across the country. These differences which were due to different compensation
schemes in pratice were heavily criticized by the trade unions throughout the period. See, TEKSĐF III. Kongre
9.8.1953 – 3.9.1958 Dönemi Raporları (Đstanbul: 1958), pp. 46-48.
434 “Adalet Mensucat Fabrikasında,” Hürbilek, 31 July 1948. Đzmir Trade Unions Association demanded that a
certain amount of workers’ earnings be exempted from taxes to maintain equal treatment both to workers and
tradespeople. “Đsçilere de Esnaf gibi Vergi Muaflığı Lazım,” Gece Postası, 23 November 1957.
435 Z. Y. Hershlag, Turkey: The Challenge of Growth (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1968), p. 319.
165
Narin’s cotton weaving mill in Bakırköy, up to 90 percent of the workers earned less than the
average earnings. In factories which depended heavily on female labor or employed new
migrants from the village, the wage gap tended to be bigger.436 The wide wage dispersion
between men and women, the high-skilled and the low-skilled, new migrants and established
workers undoubtedly had adverse effects on the collective acting capability of the workers in
the shop floor.
Wages always had been low and wage disparity always had been great in the industry.
But not all workers were totally dependent on wage. Many divided their time between field
and factory. For some workers industrial work was only a sideline in which they engaged
temporarily when they needed cash for some purpose.437 Many others traveled between
factory and field. Especially during the harvest season it was hard to keep these workers at the
factory. It is a well recorded fact that until 1950s village and factory existed in a symbiotic
relationship. They had to. Excluding the old imperial capital, public mills were all constructed
in small provincial cities and towns.
The “peasant-worker” phenomenon has been a popular research subject among the
labor historians who are tempted to work out whether the labor force during the early
republican era exhibited a “working-class consciousness” or a “peasant mentality”.438
However, these were not the categories which contemporaries often used in order to try to
understand the situation. Contemporaries often regarded the issue with reference to low labor
productivity and economic inefficiency caused by high labor mobility. Admittedly strong
436 The employer of the Adalet Mensucat pointed to the fact that many firms preferred to employ new migrants
since they paid less to them. Atıf Đlmen, “Đsçi Sendika Hareketlerinde Unutulan Esas Dava”, Mensucat Meslek
Dergisi, vol. 2, no. 3 (March 1949), p.71.
437 Nusret Ekin, Türkiye’nin Sanayilesmesinde “Köylü – Sehirli Đsçi”ler (Đstanbul: Sermet Matbaası, 1960).
438 See, for instance, Yıldırım Koç, “Türkiye’de 1923-1950 Döneminde Daimi Đsçi Sıkıntısı,” Mülkiyeliler Birliği
Dergisi, vol 18, no. 168 (June 1994).
166
links between factory and field curtailed the industrialization efforts because mills tended to
work to the agricultural calendar and it was virtually impossible for managers to instill
industrial discipline to those workers who could easily quit the work.439 Many observers of
the time, industrialists as well as experts, believed the that rationalization of the industry was
the foremost issue to be tackled if Turkey were to become an industrial country. Labor
productivity had to be increased and labor force had to be geared towards obtaining the
rhythm and discipline of industrial work. The peasant-worker phenomenon was discussed by
these observers under such a broad agenda.440
Depending on the writings of these early observers, recent studies of early republican
period class formation accept the fact of high rates of labor turnover and absenteeism and
stress the fact of the workers’ connections with the countryside as being responsible for this
historic lack of permanent attachment to factory employment.
There are numerous examples of high worker mobility in textile mills reflected in
turnover rates. At the Kayseri Textile Factory, the staff was renewed five times between 1935
and 1940. At the Woolen Cloth Factory in Bursa the turnover rate was 64.8 percent in
1941.441 The ratio for the workers who had left their job in one of the important enterprises of
the period, Đstanbul Mensucat Santral was 67 percent in 1947 and 64 percent in 1948. The
ratio of workers who started to work in the same enterprise in the same period was 57 percent
439 A classic account of the importance of the link between the rural economy and industry in the Tsarist Russia,
is provided in Theodore H. von Laue, “Russian Peasants in the Factory 1892-1904,” The Journal of Economic
History, vol.21, no.1, (March 1961). For the implications of the problem on efforts to increase labor productivity
during the NEP period, see Chris Ward, Russia’s Cotton Workers and the New Economic Policy (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1990).
440 Nusret Ekin, Türkiye’nin Sanayilesmesinde “Köylü – Sehirli Đsçi”ler (Đstanbul: Fakülteler Matbaası, 1970).
441 Yıldırım Koç, Türkiye Đsçi Sınıfı ve Sendikacılık Tarihi, Olaylar- Değerlendirmeler (Ankara: Yol-is Sendikası
Yayınları, 1996), p. 70.
167
in 1947, 76.5 percent in 1948 and 45 percent in 1949. In a spinning mill in Yedikule 59
percent of workers left the job in 1949.442
This view of the industry, however, changed dramatically during the 1950s. Still many
workers kept their ties with the land. Any mill was likely to be shut down or go to reduction
in force due to shortages of raw materials or machine parts or because of some sudden
downturn in the economy at large. Wage dependency left the working class family
dangerously exposed and therefore a hold in the land still seemed to be a sound form of
insurance for some workers. Yet the growing influx of workers in the course of the 1950s
created new networks of kinship and hemserilik (the institution of fellow- townsman
relationships) in the city. Such primordial relationships were put into service to strengthen the
bonds of the workers to the urban space and the industrial work.443 Personalized recruitment,
family hiring system and patriarchal bonds in many small scale private mills provided security
belts for workers against the uncertainties of the market environment. The family hiring
system was particularly prevalent among the immigrant families who came from Bulgaria in
1951 and 1952. Employers preferred immigrant families equally because most of them lived
close to the mills, they were often more productive and some of them were exempt from taxes
for a number of years. Therefore they were more attached to the industrial work than any
other group.444
442 Nusret Ekin, “Memleketimizde Đsçi Devri Arastırmaları ve Neticeleri,” in Sosyal Siyaset Konferansları 9-10-
11. Kitap (Đstanbul: 1960), p. 153. For other examples from textile mills see, “Đs Kanunu ile Đlgili Henry
Stevens’ın Raporları”, BCA Catalog no. [30.01/23.130.1].
443 See Debetsky, “Kinship, Primordial Ties, and Factory Organization in Turkey”.
444 It is interesting to note that in a relatively new survey on the organization of production and the application of
management techniques in textile manufacturing firms in Bursa, it was observed that managers and employers
tended to employ immigrant families from Bulgaria since immigrants were believed to be more efficient at the
point of production and more loyal to the firm compared to native workers. Theo Nichols and Nadir Suğur,
Global Đsletme, Yerel Emek: Türkiye’de Đsçiler ve Modern Fabrika (Đstanbul: Đletisim Yayınları, 2005), p. 100-
101.
168
If those possessing land had some insurance since they were not completely wage
dependent, those with a house in the city were equally fortunate since they were free of urban
overcrowding and rack rents.445 A 1950 survey of the Employment Office found out that the
mobility of workers in Đstanbul was in decline as squatter settlements were growing around
industrial plants.446
Undoubtedly the number and proportion of operatives drawn from the peasantry
changed from city to city and from factory to factory. In the mills established in provincial
towns the proportion was much higher than in mills established in large cities.447 Fındıkoğlu’s
monographic study on the Defterdar Mill reveals that many working class families of Eyüp
had been permanent settlers in the area for decades and turnover rates were low in a
remarkable manner in the textile plants of Eyüp area. Even among those families who came
recently to the city, very few families had interest in the rural economy.448 Particularly in the
Defterdar mill turnover rate was as low as 33 percent in 1951 and 20 percent in 1958 and was
still dropping after that year.449 Average labor turnover for public sector textile mills in
Đstanbul was calculated at 7.3 percent in 1963.450 One important factor that kept turnover rates
low in public sector mills was the effective incentive methods employed in order to encourage
445 As seen in Chapter 1, having title to their own home bore much more significance for workers than for any
social group. As a result, rates of home ownership among workers were higher than their incomes might suggest.
In the late 1950s, the home ownership rate for skilled and unskilled workers in Đstanbul was above that for self
employed professionals.
446 Ekmel Zadil, “Đs ve Đsçi Bulma Hizmeti, Mahiyeti ve Vazifeleri,” in Sosyal Siyaset Konferansları 4. Kitap
(Đstanbul: 1951), p.27.
447 See Sakıp Sabancı’s Speech in Tekstil Semineri, 12-14 Temmuz 1971 (Ankara: Sümerbank Yayınları, 1971),
p. 45.
448 Fındıkoğlu, pp.15-16.
449 Ahmet Seyfettin Simsek, Feshane Mensucat Fabrikası (Đstanbul: Öztürk Basımevi, 1960), p. 59.
450 Kunkel, p.34
169
workers to serve long periods in the mill. In Sümerbank plants particularly each worker was
paid a seniority premium according to the length of service.451
Admittedly, turnover rates were significantly different among the private textile mills.
A later survey revealed that labor turnover rates in the cotton textile combines in Đstanbul
varied between 18 percent and 50 percent.452 According to the survey, however, the role of
the social origin among the reasons for labor turnover was significantly low. The industry
encountered some problems in recruiting a stable and qualified labor force for a number of
other reasons.
While it is true that some workers had been on the shop floor for a long time and
others had come only recently, it is not possible to deduce workers’ responses by appealing to
a set of social antecedents. High labor turnover in individual mills, on the other hand, is
clearly compatible with low rates of departure from the industry. In other words labor
turnover in individual mills must not be correlated automatically with a return to the
countryside. To the extent that observers were accurately reporting labor turnover, they were
only reporting what went on in individual mills with which they had experience. It was
impossible for them to identify the destination of a worker who departed. Moreover, as one
contemporary who studied the issue noted, even if there had been a high labor turnover in the
industry it is possible that it was generated by a very small segment of the working force.453
However, very few studies provided evidence for the continuity of labor force in the
industry. Akarlı’s study revealed that male workers left the mills usually when they found
451 Simsek, pp. 68-69.
452 Hüseyin D. Akarlı, “A Comparative Study of Wage Administration Policies and Problems of Public and
Private Sector Cotton Textile Mills in Đstanbul” (M.A. Thesis, Boğaziçi University, 1968), p. 43.
453 Nusret M. Ekin, Sanayimizdeki Yüksek Đsçi Devrinin Tesirleri ve Bu Hususta Alınabilecek Tedbirler (Đstanbul:
Sermet Matbaası, 1960), p. 23.
170
jobs which were more highly paid and offered better working conditions.454 Zaim’s study
confirmed that in textile mills of Đstanbul high rates of labor turnover largely were due to the
shifting of workers from plant to plant.455 Among the reasons for the termination of
employment contracts, layoffs took the first place in Defterdar by 20-32 percent during the
period.456 Moreover, although forbidden by law, lock-outs were integral to the industrial life
in the 1950s. Employers could lock-out workers during seasonal crises or in order to deter
them from the demands of wage increase or from any other “excessive” demands related to
workplace conditions and terms of employment.457
For women, however, leaving the mill often meant leaving the industry since marriage
and childbirth were the major reasons among women for quitting the mill.458 Maternity was
the major factor for the termination of employment contracts of female workers. In 1956, for
instance, maternity was as high as 29.1 among the reasons for quitting the job.459 Compulsory
military service often came the third on the list. However, only 5 percent of workers in 1951
454 Ibid., p. 44.
455 Zaim, Đstanbul Mensucat Sanayiinin Bünyesi ve Ücretler, p. 314.
456 Simsek, p. 65.
457 “40 Tütün Đsçisine Ansızın Yol Verildi,” Đstanbul Ekspres, 10 August 1952; “Lastik Đskolunda Bir Lokavt
Hadisesi,” Cumhuriyet, 17 November 1959; “Açıkta Kalan 750 Đsçi”, Gece Postası, 14 June 1954.
458 One of the personel managers observed that female workers often left the mill in the autumn time, for it was
the time for young women to get married. Akarlı, p.44.
459 Contemporaries often emphasized that the lack of day nurseries and breast-feeding rooms at the mills left
women with no choice but quit their jobs after marriage. According to one observor only two tobacco factories in
Cibali and Üsküdar provided day care service in 1946. See Celal Dinçer, “Kadın Đsçilerimiz, Kres ve Çocuk
Yuvası Đhtiyacımız,” Çalısma, no. 8 (July 1946). Infact a 1953 decree of the council of ministers made it
obligatory for large undertakings to establish nurseries in two years. However in 1957 only in a few private
sector mills nurseries had been opened. See “Đsverenler Kres Yapmak Đstemiyor”, Gece Postası, 17 Kasım 1957.
In the Defterdar Mill a nursery was opened as late as 1956. “Defterdar Mensucat Fabrikası”, Đstanbul
Ansiklopedisi cilt 8, p. 4344. In 1959, it was reported that a nursery was reopened very recently in the
Sümerbank Bakırköy Cotton Mill. “Bakırköy Fabrikası Kresinde 90 Kadar Đsçi Çocuğuna Bakılıyor”, Gece
Postası, 1 January 1959. On the other hand, it is worth adding that some contemporaries disclaimed the link
between day nurseries and job continity. Henri Stevens, who wrote extensive reports on labor law reform, noted
that he had seen no direct relationship between the social provisions and turnover rates in the workplaces he
traveled. Even in large factories where nurseries had been established, women partially benefitted from the
service. See Đs kanunu ile ilgili Henry Stevens'ın raporları, BCA [Catalog no. 030.01/ 23.130..1].
171
left the mill in order to move to the village in the harvest time. This ratio was nearly zero in
the mid-1950s, but climbed again in the second half of the decade.460
Turnover rates were higher in the mills established in countryside compared to those in
industrial cities; in private mills compared to public establishments; in large scale factories
compared to small scale workshops; and among women compared to men. One survey in the
mid-1950s suggested that about 60 percent of male workers in Đstanbul stayed in the same
workplace for five or more years. This was perceived as an improvement in the eyes of many
contemporaries.461
So far the remarkable development of textile industry and the workforce it generated in
the post-war period has been examined. Particular stress was given to the ways which
operatives were divided by gender, trade, skill and commitment to factory work. But there is
no contradiction here. Workers were clearly capable of perceiving a community of interest
and acting in concert when threatened by incompetent, heavy-handed employers and the novel
stimulus of market forces. Below we shall have a closer look at the working class experiences
inside the factory on the shop floor. We hope to see how the labor process which had
undergone a profound transformation in the period shaped the working class culture and
struggles.
Organizing the Production: Labor Discipline and Scientific Management in Mills
In this part of the chapter the organization of work – that is, the labor process- in
textile workplaces will be explored. We hope to show here that the reconstruction of labor
460 Simsek, p. 65. For the figures of 1948-1949, see Basbakanlık Umumi Murakabe Heyeti, Sümerbank-
Defterdar Yünlü Sanayii Müessesesi 1949 Yılı Raporu (Ankara: 1950).
461 Ekin, Sanayimizdeki Yüksek Đsçi Devrinin Tesirleri, p. 25.
172
processes and of cash-earnings, of breaks, of articulation of needs and anxieties should enable
a specific understanding of particular workers’ lives and politics. The primary subject matter
of the discussion will be the weavers in textile mills. Yet to understand their particular
experience of the labor process it is necessary to take a closer look at the experiences of
weavers employed in small manufacturing units. In doing this we do not aim to make simple
comparisons. It will be argued that the working conditions and the labor process in small
manufacturing shops and the labor market structure generated in small manufacturing (in our
case, “Mahmutpasa weaving shops”) had broad influences on the labor process in larger
textile mills. In other words small manufacturing and factory production fed one another
throughout the period and this situation had comprehensive implications on the structuring of
labor process and working class action on the shop floor.
In such a research, the characteristics of the contexts can be derived from
contemporary reports given by outsiders, or occasionally by participant observers, as well as
from the memoirs of those involved. But it also can be derived from evidence which was
produced with seemingly technical purposes, such as factory regulations, machine accounts
and wage systems.
The reconstruction of the labor process during the period came with the introduction of
the scientific management techniques in large scale plants in the industry. That is why we are
beginning the section with a deliberation on such techniques that aimed to establish
managerial control and discipline on labor power in order to maximize productivity. Particular
emphasis will be given to the importance of piece rates compensation schemes not only
because the wage policy was the foremost instrument in the hands of scientific management
to instill in workers a greater sense of time discipline, but also because it became a source of
ongoing grievances among workers, and frequent rate cuts which fed the feeling of insecurity
and injustice in workers provided a drive and pretext for action on the shop floor. In other
173
words, the struggle between the capitalists’ interest to speed up production and the workers’
concern for retaining control over the pace of the work became a vital issue with the
introduction of scientific management techniques in the industry.
Scientific management, which has been associated with Taylorism, had been in the air
long before the 1950s. Taylorism as an idea had been introduced to Turkey probably in the
late 1930s and was translated into some kind of reality in the early 1940s. But only in the
early 1950s, when economies of scale was achieved to a certain degree and more capitalintensive
technologies were employed, could scientific management techniques flourish in a
more full sense.
Scientific management, in essence, is an attempt to apply the methods of science to the
increasingly complex problems of the control of labor in rapidly growing capitalist
enterprises. Taylor’s work belonged to this chain of development of management methods
and organization of labor throughout the second half of the nineteenth century. Many
elements of which Taylor wrote were not new with the Taylor system. The thrust towards
standardization of tools and tasks, the increased use of semiskilled and unskilled workers
were tendencies that had long been evident in American economic development. Payment by
result systems had also been in use long before Taylor. The piece rate itself was a carry-over
from the old putting out system where merchants and master craftsmen subcontracted to
smaller craftsmen to complete the product at home. In the nineteenth century it was embraced
by the employers as a practical instrument for stimulating intensified work.462 Even in Turkey,
in the Feshane mill a very small proportion of workers worked in piece rates as early as
462 For this point, see Joel Mokyr, “The Rise and Fall of the Factory System: Technology, Firms and Households
Since the Industrial Revolution,” Paper prepared for the Carnegie-Rochester Conference on macroeconomics,
Pittsburgh, November 17-19, 2000. Available at http://faculty.wcas.northwestern.edu/~jmokyr/pittsburgh.PDF.
174
1915.463 Yet the significance of Taylorism was, as Richard Edwards suggested, that “it
showed the possibilities of applying corporate resources to the control problem in a more
systematic way.”464
Taylor’s work began in the 1880s, but it was not until the 1890s that he began to
lecture and publish results. By the turn of the century his ideas won him a strong following
among capitalists and managers. The spread of the Taylor approach was in no way limited to
the United States and England. Within a short time it became popular in all industrial
countries and also gained adherents in less industrialized countries.465 The approach came to
Turkey probably through the German scholars, who built the industrial relations discipline at
the Đstanbul University in the late 1930s. In Germany, the Taylor approach was known simply
as rationalization.466
In Turkey, too, the Taylorist techniques became known as rationalization. Industrial
magazines began publishing introductory essays on Taylorism in the late 1930s. By the early
1940s, there were a plenty of articles published on academic journals for promoting the
rationalization movement. Especially the Taylorist wage systems were attractive to
rationalizers. Flat rates led to the unproductive use of capital, contended one rationalizer;
workers might be at their machines for only five out of an eight hour shift. On the other hand,
an operative paid by piece rates was not late for work, did not spend the working time visiting
463 Mustafa Erdem Kabadayı, “Working in a Fez Factory in Istanbul in the Late Nineteenth Century: Division of
Labour and Networks of Migration Formed Along Ethno-Religious Lines,” International Review of Social
History, no. 54 (2009), Supplement, p. 76.
464 Richard Edwards, Contested Terrain: The Transformation of the Workplace in the Twentieth Century (New
York: Basic Books, 1979), p. 98.
465 See David Kucera, “Labor-Management Relations in Twentieth-Century Japan: A Review Essay,”
International Labor and Working Class History, no. 58 (Fall 2000).
466 Harry Braverman, Labor and Monopoly Capital: The Degradation of Work in the Twentieth Century (New
York: Monthly Review Press, 1974), p. 91.
175
other departments or chatting with friends, nor did he leave his work often and often for a
smoke.467
As has been noted the piece rate wage systems was a primary method for strengthening
the employer’s hand in the struggle to speed up production. Marx saw piecework as the form
of wage payments most suited to industrial capitalism because it ensured a maximum intensity
of labor and stimulated competitive bidding between workers.468 However, the historical
experiences made it clear to the employers that when it is not supported by other mechanisms
of control, workers, who had the private information about the nature of their jobs, were able
to regulate piece-work and so turn it from an instrument of subordination to one of
resistance.469 Richard Edwards summarizes the historical record as follows:
Managers’ disability to control soldiering resulted from their inadequate knowledge
of the actual techniques of production. Most of the specific expertise -for example,
knowledge of how quickly production tasks could be done- resided in workers…
Piece-rates always carried the allure of payment for actual labor done (rather than
labor power), thus promising an automatic solution to the problem of translating
labor power into labor. Two difficulties intervened to spoil this solution. [First,]
paying workers only according to their self-established pace … became unattractive
if it meant that the machinery ran at less than full speed; in this case the piece-rate
467 See, for instance, Fahri Perkin, “Fabrikalarda Verimin Arttırılması,” Endüstri, vol. 23, no. 8 (April 1938);
Burhan Ergin, “Taylor ve Sistemi,” Đktisadi Yürüyüs, no. 119 (1944); Burhan Ergin, “Taylor’un Hem Đsçiyi Hem
de Patronu Memnun Eden Fikirleri,” Đktisadi Yürüyüs, no. 123 (1945); Ahmet Ali Özeken, “Đstihsal Cephesinde
Tasarruf: Türkiye Devlet Sanayiinin Rasyonalizasyon Problemlerine Bir Bakıs”, Đstanbul Üniversitesi Đktisat
Fakültesi Mecmuası, no. 2 (1943); Sadi Günel, “Đsin Đsçiye Göre Ayarlanması,” Çalısma Dergisi, no. 12 (1946);
A. Kemal Karadayı, “En Đyi Randıman Nasıl Alınabilir? Đsçi ve Ustabası Münasebetlerinin Islahı,” Çalısma
Dergisi, no. 8 (June 1946); Sait Kandan, “Rasyonellesme ve Çırak Yetistirme Meselesi,” Çalısma Dergisi, no. 9
(July 1946).
468 “Piece-wages allow the capitalist to make a contract for so much per piece with the most important worker –
in manufacture, with the chef of some group, in mines with the extractor of the coal, in the factory with the
actual machine-worker – at a price for which this man himself undertakes the enlisting and the payments of his
assistants. Here the exploitation of the worker by capital takes place through the medium of the exploitation of
one worker by another. Given the system of piece-wages, it is naturally in the personal interest of the worker that
he should strain his labour-power as intensely as possible; this in turn enables the capitalist to raise the normal
degree of intensity of labor more easily… It is apparent that the piece-wage is the form of wage most appropriate
to the capitalist mode of production.” Karl Marx, Capital, Volume I (Middlesex: Penguin Books, 1976), p. 695-
697.
469 A discussion on the theoretical and empirical dimensions of the labor process as a formative influence on the
development of labor in society is provided in Richard Price, “The Labour Process and Labour History,” Social
History, vol. 8, no. 1 (January 1983).
176
would cut down on the labor cost, but it would not necessarily bring profits. Thus,
capitalists could never be indifferent to the workers’ pace.
[Second,] piece-rates always contained an incentive for workers to deceive
employers and restrict output. Since the pay structure was necessarily anchored on
some expectation of how quickly a job could be done, the system clearly led workers
to make jobs appear to take as long as possible.470
Therefore as long as management depended upon its workers for information about
how fast the job could be done there was no way to make piece rate method deliver its
promise.
This inherent ambiguity of piece-work was well recognized by Taylor. To overcome
this ambiguity, Taylor offered the “scientific study of work” as a new independent source of
knowledge, for he believed that unless management knew in detail how production occurred,
precise direction of work tasks was impossible. The “time study” method was developed as
part of his effort to gain control over the job. Time study may be defined as the measurement
of elapsed time for each component operation of a work process; its prime instrument is the
stopwatch calibrated in fractions of an hour, minute or second. This method of determining
standards pursued by managers was complemented soon afterwards by a new line of
development by Frank B. Gilbreth, one of Taylor’s most prominent followers. His concept of
“motion study” comprised the investigation and classification of the basic motions of the
body, regardless of the particular and concrete form of the labor in which these motions were
used.471 Together “time-motion studies” would become popular and be effectively used to
reduce the consumed time and the number of motions in performing a task in order to increase
labor productivity.
470 Edwards, pp. 98-99. For other accounts of the history of failed attempts to install piece rate compensation
systems, see Robert Gibbons, “Piece-Rate Incentive Schemes,” Journal of Labor Economics, vol. 5, no. 4
(1987).
471 Braverman, p. 173.
177
The interest with rationalizing the production process in Turkey did not remain limited
to research papers. During the war time, when labor shortage became a more acute problem
and labor productivity further decreased due to increased mobility, the Sümerbank and
Etibank factories initiated attempts to improve rationalization. To force up productivity, a
variant of individual piece rates, the Bedaux system, was introduced in most of these state
owned factories in 1942/43. In the Bedaux system, first, the standard time for a job was
determined by time and motion studies. Each minute of allowed time was called a point. Then
a standard number of points were specified for the completion of each job. This system
enforced the managerial control of the work process by enabling the management to record
the output of any worker or department in units which showed at once if production was up to
the standard the management desired.472 As in other systems of payment by result, the Bedaux
system aimed at maximizing labor productivity by rewarding workers for achieving tasks
which was set at a high level. An International Bank for Reconstruction and Development
(IBRD) report wrote with enthusiasm about these early experiences with scientific
management in 1951as follows: “In recent years progress has been made in increasing the
productive efficiency of state factories in terms of productivity per hour. This was particularly
true during WWII when increased production could come only from better use of available
facilities. This progress is in part attributable to the activities of PM’s High Control Board
which sends specialists to study plant efficiency.”473
For example, in the workplaces of Đzmit Sümerbank Cellulose Industrial Corporation,
the time rates remained to be the principal wage system. Yet in 1942 wage policy underwent a
472 We will return to this issue below when discussing the shop floor conditions in Santral Mensucat and
Defterdar mills.
473 IBRD Economic Mission to Turkey, The Economy of Turkey, (Washington: International Bank for
Reconstruction and Development, 1951), p. 114.
178
sea change and growing number of workers were paid by piece rates and received production
premiums after that year. By 1945, more than half of the workforce was already paid by the
piece.474 Likewise in the Bakırköy and Defterdar mills, more than half of the workers were
working in piece rates at the end of the war.475 Although in a more limited scale, some large
scale private sector mills also applied Taylorist innovations at around the same time.
However, early accounts of these experiments with Taylorist wage systems were not
optimistic of the results. According to some observers if there were any gains from piece rates
in these plants, it was very limited. For one thing, the system was complicated and employers
often grew impatient long before the final elements were ready to be installed. In many firms
managements, under pressure to obtain results, began taking shortcuts and the full system was
never installed. Only a few firms, noted Özeken, adopted proper scientific management,
which included the progressive sub-division of work tasks, time and motion studies and more
piecework. Moreover, scientific management envisaged a much more active role for managers
and engineers in allocating and supervising work than was found under the old system. But
the factories in Turkey lacked the sufficient number of professionals who knew the new
management techniques. 476 In comparison with the Western Europe countries, technicians
474 Uygur Kocabasoğlu et. al., SEKA Tarihi: Türkiye Selüloz ve Kağıt Fabrikalarının Tarihsel Gelisimi (Ankara:
Ajans Türk, 1996), p. 147.
475 Zaim, Đstanbul Mensucat Sanayiinin Bünyesi, p. 176.
476 Railway workers’ experience with “work evaluation program” started in 1955. However the financial
requirements to apply the program were not met and managers were not trained proparly to understand and
install the novelties. Consequently the recurrent attempts of managers to apply scientific methods remained
unsuccesful to meet the desired ends. In a later article workers were complaining of the results of these
unsuccesful attempts as follows: “Değerlendirme sisteminin D.D. Yollarında çalısanlara uygulanmak istenmesi
bize kalırsa yanlıs bir harekettir. Çünkü bu sistemin ancak seri imalatta bulunan fabrikalarda tatbik edildiği
takdirde istenilen randımanı vermektedir. Oysaki is sartları değisik ve seri bir imalat sistemi içinde bulunmayan
D. D. Yolları isçilerine bu sistemi tatbik etmek hiçbir zaman arzulanan randımanı vermemektedir… Fikirlerimiz
yanlıs anlasılması. Biz isçiler olarak her türlü yeniliği sever ve kabul ederiz. Ancak bu memleket isçilerinin
hayatına uygun olmayan bir sistemin de zorla tatbik etmek istenilisi karsısında hiçbir zaman susmıyacağımızı,
hatalı noktaların giderilmesi hususunda yapıcı tenkidleri yapmaktan geri durmayacağız… 35-40 bin isçinin ve
bir o kadar da aile efradının geçim sıkıntısı içinde kalmalarına sebep olan bu sistemin isçilere yararlı olabilecek
179
were always scarce even though many foreign engineers and experts were invited to the
country from the second half of the 1930s onwards.477 Consequently, managements of many
state-run enterprises abandoned piece rate compensation schemes in most of the departments
in the factories. In the Defterdar mill, for instance, the proportion of workers paid at piece
rates fell to 48 percent in 1948 and further to 37 percent in 1954.478 Foreign operated large
undertakings which had the opportunity to make use of the know-how of foreign managers
and engineers were probably more successful in introducing Taylorist innovations in the labor
process.479
There were other problems which hindered the success of scientific management in the
mills. Some of them might stem from the unstable labor markets. Under scientific
management, wages were individualized and, through the device of piece rates, geared to each
unit of output. Each worker was assigned an output quota, or norm, and outstanding work
performance, defined as production above the norm, was to be rewarded. In theory, as more
and more of the workforce moved over to piece rates, wages could become a powerful lever
for raising productivity. In practice, however, managers and especially foremen, desperate to
hold onto the “scarce” labor power, readily credited workers for fictitious work and, in any
case, could award supplementary payments and bonuses to workers to make up for deductions
that resulted from the failure to fulfill norms. For instance in Çıkvasili Textile Mill established
in Bakırköy, this was exactly the reason of the failure of the piece rates wage system. The
sekilde isleyebilmesini sağlayacak tedbirlerin alınmasını beklemekteyiz.” Mehmet Gökgür, “Demiryolu Đsçileri
ve Değerlendirme Sistemi”, Đsçinin Sesi, 5 September 1960.
477 Ahmet Ali Özeken, “Türkiye’de Sanayi Đsçileri,” in Đçtimai Siyaset Konferansları Birinci Kitap (Đstanbul:
1948), p.76. Sefkati Türkekul, “Tekstil Mühendisleri Đsbasında,” Mensucat Meslek Dergisi, vol 4, no. 5 (May
1951). See also Alfred Isaac, “Ücret Sistemleri,” in Đçtimai Siyaset Konferansları Đkinci Kitap (Đstanbul: ĐÜ
Đktisat Fakültesi Đçtimaiyat Enstitüsü, 1949), p. 55.
478 Zaim, Đstanbul Mensucat Sanayiinin Bünyesi, p. 176.
479 See, for example, “General Elektrik Türkiye Ampül Fabrikası,” Đsçi Gazetesi, 10 March 1952.
180
employer had to abandon the new arrangements in the face of the rising worker frustration
manifested in the higher turnover and growing unrest in the plant. To keep the workers at
work the engineers and foremen had to revise and modify the rates again and again which
rendered the whole system meaningless.480
There were still other complications which emanated from the lack of standardization
of the tools and materials used in production; problems we may call of “technological
idiosyncrasy.”481 In a textile factory established in Aksaray the management failed to establish
a proper Taylorist wage policy because it depended on imported thread and the problems
encountered in foreign exchange rationing was making it virtually impossible to standardize
the raw materials used in production. This lack of standardization meant different productivity
and output levels in every cycle of production. It proved to the managers that imposing piece
rates under this condition only fed the workers’ sense of unreliability and threatened the work
peace on the shop floor.482
An additional source of idiosyncrasy resulted from the employment of machines of
different ages and of different types. In such cases, workers in spinning and weaving
departments might have to spend more or less time to clean or repair their machines, for
example. Weaving looms often stopped since weavers found themselves rejoining broken
threads more or less frequently. Additionally weavers might have to modify their work
practices in response to variations in the quality of semi-finished goods received from other
departments or factories. Under such conditions, the machinery deviated from the
480 Zaim, Đstanbul’da Mensucat Sanayiinin Bünyesi, p. 188. “Çikvasili Fabrikası 130 Đsçisine Yol Veriyor,” Gece
Postası, 6 Ocak 1957.
481 I borrow the term from Chris Ward, “Languages of Trade or a Language of Class? Work Culture in Russian
Cotton Mills in the 1920s,” in Lewis H. Siegelbaum and Ronald Gregory Suny (eds.), Making Workers Soviet:
Power, Class and Identity (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1994), p. 197.
482 For other examples, see Zaim, Đstanbul’da Mensucat Sanayiinin Bünyesi, p. 188.
181
standardizing and deskilling intentions and became idiosyncratic. In the Jakarlı Textile
Manufacturing Corporation established in Samatya, the reason for the abandonment of piece
rates wages scheme was the lack of standardization. Since the speed and physical condition of
the machinery and other equipment did not match with each other, the total output of each
operative changed from day to day. This rendered impossible on the part of management to
fix rates for any job.483 Frequent power cuts in mills, which were common in the 1950s, were
another source of delays in the production process and ruined the efforts of standardization.
In the immediate aftermath of the war, the rationalization and productivity problems in
Turkish industry came to the fore once again on the discussions pertaining to the industrial
organization. Early experiences with scientific management were not very successful, yet the
ground for applying it was developing rapidly after the end of the war. As we have seen
above, many existing mills were being modernized484 and a number of large private mills
were being established. 485 The new imperatives to capital intensive productivity pressed upon
employers to demand and exercise a greater degree of direct managerial control. Moreover
since the end of the war a more stable labor force was developing in the big urban centers of
the country which could be subjected to management control and work discipline more
easily.486
483 Ibid., p.193.
484 Many weaving mills obtained newer technology machines in the late 1940s and early 1950s, financed
partially by the credits extended by IDBT. See Clark, pp. 85-86. Avni Erakalın remembers that most of the new
machinery (automatic looms) in textiles were imported from Germany. However, those employers who received
credits from the Marshall Plan Private Enterprise Fund had to purchase US made machinery.
485 According to Braverman, Taylorism was applicable in particular situations and in particular industries where
the scales of production were adequate to support the efforts and costs involved in rationalizing them. It was for
this reason above all that Taylorism coincided with the growth of production and its concentration in ever larger
corporate units in the latter part of the nineteenth and in the twentieth centuries.
486 David Montgomery argues that it was after immigrants to the US had accustomed themselves to the discipline
of industrial work and had learned the rules of the game that scientific management gained widespread appeal
among managerial classes, even it failed to eliminate restrictive practices. See David Montgomery, Workers’
182
The need to apply Taylorist methods in Turkish industry to exert labor discipline and
productivity also was discussed in the National Assembly in the early 1950s. During the
parliamentary talks on the 1951 Ministry of Labor budget, some deputies expressed their
anxiety about the low labor productivity recorded in industrial plants and the negative effect
of this situation on the development of modern industry. This was most vividly expressed by
Maras deputy Emin Soysal as follows:
If we are to apply Taylorism in our factories, barely twenty percent of our workers
could be successful under that system. This is my personal opinion that when you
watch a cellulose or brick worker on job in our country, you will see that the work
that can be finished in two hours by a European or an American worker, takes the
complete day of our workers.487
In the meantime there were recurrent reports and articles in the newspapers
concerning the problems of low labor productivity, high unit labor costs and irrationality of
the compensation systems used in the industry. For instance, Cevat Nizami wrote in
Hürriyet newspaper in October 1950 that decreasing labor costs were the major economic
problem of the country. This was especially important in the face of the backward structure
of industrial wages. According to Nizami in order to improve labor productivity, which was
the only way to reduce labor costs, scientific management techniques and rationalized
compensation methods should be applied more broadly in industry.488 In a similar vein, in
Control in America: Studies in the History of Work, Technology and Labor Struggles (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1979), especially chapter 2. Montgomery provides an insightful discussion of the American
experience with workplace rationalization and particularly the powerful sense of constant change felt by
workers. In a similar vein Chris Ward argues that in the Russian setting Taylorism as a practice was most
successful in the parts of the country where labor was more settled and links to the land became more loose. See
Ward, p. 208
487 TBMM Tutanak Dergisi, term 4, session 4, vol 24-2, 25 December 1950, p. 1243. “Taylorizmi biz
fabrikalarımızda tatbik etsek bizim isçilerin o sistem dahilinde yüzde 20’si ancak is sahasında muvaffak olabilir.
Bir kağıt veya tuğla amelesini seyrettiğiniz vakit rasyonel çalısan Avrupa veya Amerika isçisinin 2 saatte
yapacağı isi bizimki asgari sekiz saatte yapabiliyor dersem bunu takribi olarak ve kendi kanaatim olarak
söylediğimi takdir buyurursunuz.” For similar observations on Zonguldak coal mine workers, see Asım Us,
Hatıra Notları (Đstanbul: Ekspres Matbaası, 1966), pp. 272-274.
488 BCA [Catalog no. 490.01/204.812.2].
183
another article that appeared in Cumhuriyet newspaper “the question of raising productivity”
was also identified as the most serious problem of the industry. The author suggested that
the “scientific knowledge which had been in use in the West for the last 25 years” be
applied in Turkey in order to “integrate labor power in the industry in the most productive
way.”489
Conventionally, the textile industry was the principal locus of applications of scientific
management and piece rates. Competitive bidding was forcing first and foremost the textile
industry to adopt scientific management techniques. An ILO survey showed that by 1950,
piece-work had become the principle method of payment in textile industry in a wide range of
countries including the developing countries such as Egypt, India, Uruguay, Bolivia and
Brazil. In developed countries such as the United Kingdom, the USA, the Netherlands and
Switzerland the spinning, knitting and weaving sections of the wool and cotton industries
worked nearly without exception on the basis of piece-rates.490 Furthermore, cross country
comparisons indicated that labor productivity in the Turkish textile industry lagged far behind
that in the European countries. A later OECD report for European conditions provided
insights as to what sized units were economical. The report recommended that in an optimum
weaving mill a single worker could handle from 25 to 40 automatic looms depending on the
type of material to be produced.491 In Turkey, however, weavers even in large scale plants
handled 2-12 looms, depending generally on the “workplace customs” and on the type and
age of the machines used in the mill. Therefore the weaving textile industry was under a
heavy pressure to take measures for improving efficiency and productivity.
489 Nizamettin Ali Sav, “Đsçi Meselelerimiz,” Cumhuriyet, 30 August 1948.
490 International Labor Office, Payment by Results (Geneva: 1951), p.78.
491 Kunkel, pp. 77-78.
184
In the pages below the application of scientific management techniques on specific
cases in the industry and the reaction it induced in the shop floor among workers will be
analyzed. Special attention will be put on the weavers since their trade was considered to be
more a skilled and highly paid profession than any other job in the sector. The limited
discretionary power that the weavers enjoyed annoyed the employers who wanted to increase
the productivity in their factories.
But before, to understand the tug of war between employers and weavers, we need to
have a closer look at the weaving trade during the period. Below the implications of the
persistence of small scale weaving industry for working class formation and for the specific
experiences of weavers will be briefly discussed. The persistence of small manufacturing
centered around Mahmutpasa narrowed down the labor market for employers who sought to
recruit experienced weavers and thus became a very important factor that enabled weavers in
the larger undertakings to act and resist more effectively against the managerial control
techniques. A “dual labor market” existed for experienced-skilled weavers during the whole
period.
The labor process prevalent in the Mahmutpasa small weaving shops is also interesting
to explore for it points to another mode of labor control in which the push for increasing
productivity was provided not by technological change, but by more despotic ways of
intensifying work and lengthening the working hours.
Mahmutpasa Weavers: Working in Small-Scale Production
A small scale enterprise usually is defined in terms of the number of workers
employed. Another definition classifies small firms as those that primarily use family labor
and apprentices. Still other definitions rely on the amount of finance required to start the
business or the technological capacity of the firm. Here we use the first definition since the
185
national statistics and other studies in Turkey often adapted this criterion. For instance, the
Turkish Commercial Code and the Transaction Tax Law defined small scale firms as those
which employed less than five persons without taking into account whether they were family
members or not. The 1936 Labor Code did not make any definition, yet by covering those
workplaces which employed ten or more persons, it implied that small-scale enterprises
employed less than ten persons.492
After 1945 it became ordinary to use “number of workers” criteria and define a firm as
small scale if it employs less than ten persons. According to the estimations of the Ministry of
Labor, there were at least 100,000 weavers in small manufacturing units in 1945.493 This
figure was much bigger from that of the 1920s and was affected particularly by the
curtailment of imports and the shortage of labor in big industry during the war years. During
the war the national income declined by two or three percent annually. The private
manufacturing sector confronted difficulties principally because of problems in securing
imports. However, small manufacturing in textile, especially small-scale weaving firms,
profited both from the decline in imports and the low labor productivity in the state sector. At
the end of the war small manufacturing accounted for 25 percent of the total cotton textile
production in Turkey. State production also managed to increase its output during the war.494
However, still one fourth of the textile production was provided through imports. In the
492 See Samet Ağaoğlu, “Küçük Sanat Davası,” in Türkiye Ekonomisinin Baslıca Meseleleri, ed. Türk Đktisat
Cemiyeti (Ankara: Recep Ulusoğlu Basımevi, 1944), pp. 164-166; Orhan Tuna, Đstanbul Küçük Sanayii ve
Bugünkü Meseleleri (Đstanbul: Đstanbul Üniversitesi Nesriyatı No. 462, 1950), pp. 45-49.
493 Çalısma Bakanlığı’nın Đlk Yılı ve Hedefleri (5 Yıllık Đs Programının Esasları) (Ankara: Akın Matbaası, 1946),
p.65. In the same year the number of hand looms in Turkey was estimated as 50 thousand. Necati Topçuoğlu,
“Memleketimiz El Tezgahı Dokumacılığı Çalısmalarına Genel Bir Bakıs,” Çalısma Dergisi, no. 3 (January
1946), p. 30.
494 Çağlar Keyder, “Manufacturing in the Ottoman Empire and in Republican Turkey, ca. 1800-1950” in
Manufacturing in the Ottoman Empire and Turkey, 1500-1950, ed. Donald Quataert (New York: SUNY Press,
1994), p. 147.
186
meantime older handlooms in small shops in big cities were replaced by pedal control looms
and increasingly by more advance technology power looms.495 It seems that the dynamics of
the industry in the aftermath of the war further supported the small manufacturing. The
growth of mechanized spinning and the consequent increase in thread production served to
preserve, and probably stimulate, the small scale weaving shops. For that simple reason a
historical account of the working class in Turkey should incorporate the implication of the
persistence of small scale weaving for working class formation and for the specific
experiences of weavers in Turkey. As shall be discussed below the persistence of small scale
weaving shops also had broader impacts on the historical development of labor relations and
shop floor struggles of workers in larger weaving mills.
The Mahmutpasa small scale weaving industry, too, was the product of wartime
economic conditions.496 A report presented to the RPP General Secretariat in 1948 provides
valuable information about the economic capacity of the weaving mills in the region. The
report was prepared by four weaving mill employers who claimed to be the representatives of
the “small employers in the Eminönü district.” Allowing for slight exaggeration, the data
presented here clearly exhibit the importance of small weaving industry in Mahmutpasa.
According to the report, in 1948, the number of cotton and wool weaving looms employed in
the Mahmutpasa workshops was around 240. The figure included the handweaving looms, yet
the great majority was power looms. The report maintained that the number of power looms
in Mahmutpasa was equal to that number in Defterdar factory, yet the production efficiency
was 50 percent greater than both Defterdar and Hereke Sümerbank establishments. Moreover,
495 Đlhan Tekeli and Selim Đlkin “Savasmayan Ülkenin Savas Ekonomisi: Üretimden Tüketime Pamuklu
Dokuma” in Cumhuriyetin Harcı, 2. Kitap (Đstanbul: Bilgi Üniversitesi Yayınları, 2004), p.443; Muhlis Ete,
“Türkiye’de Pamuklu ve Dokuma Sanayi,” Đktisadi Yürüyüs, no. 54 (March 1942).
496 Kemal Sülker, “Mahmutpasa’da Đsçi ve Đsverenlerin Çesitli Derdi Var,” Gece Postası, 6 August 1952.
187
the report argued, this small scale manufacturing in the district amounted for the 35-40
percent of woolen cloth production in the country.497
The industry in Mahmutpasa soared up in the early 1950s. According to the data
provided by Mahmutpasa Small Textile Industry Employers’ Union,498 small weaving
workplaces outside the scope of the Labor Code in the district amounted to 400 and the
number of automatic looms was roughly 500 in 1954. 2300 workers were employed in these
small shops which hired 1-3 persons.499 About an equal number of workers were estimated to
be employed in other branches of textiles in the district. It is noteworthy that since the
workplaces which employed 4-9 persons were included in the labor code after 1952, these
figures left out many shops which could be regarded as small scale firms. According to Zaim,
there were in the total about 900 textile manufacturing shops in the region by the mid-
1950s.500 At about the same time Sülker wrote that there were around 8,000 workers
employed in the Mahmutpasa weaving shops and in other branches of textiles that were
outside the scope of the Labor Law. Employers, Sülker argued, divided their workshops once
again after 1952 to keep the number of workers below four.501
By using the available archival resources and reports as well as newspaper articles we
can bring into open the patterns of trading and the organization of labor process in the
497 BCA Catalog no. [490.01/1447.28.2]
498 It is interesting to note that at the head of the Mahmutpasa Small Textile Industry Employers’ Union was
Sabahattin Selek whose name was respectfully accredited by Sülker for his efforts in the establishment of trade
unions after 1947, even in a period when his efforts were not very much supported by his party. Selek was also
active in the establishment of the Workers’ Bureau of the governing party and became the editor of its publishing
organ, Hürbilek, in 1948.
499 Sabahaddin Zaim, Đstanbul Mensucat Sanayiinin Bünyesi ve Ücretler (Đstanbul: Sermet Matbaası, 1956), p.
120.
500 Ibid, p. 147.
501 Kemal Sülker, “Mahmutpasa Dokuma Đsçilerinin Ezeli Derdi,” Gece Postası, 16 January 1956.
188
Mahmutpasa small-scale weaving industry. In a 1947 report prepared by the National
Assembly Commission which travelled across the country and visited tens of workplaces,
small-scale industry in Mahmutpasa region occupies a large space.502 According to the report,
in almost all shops sanitary conditions were awful in Mahmutpasa. Most of the shops were
located in old inns and hamams that had been constructed in the Byzantine ır Ottoman
times.503 High humidity and lack of fresh air were common characteristics of the shops. The
majority of the shops were ice-cold in the winter and not lit properly. Baths, resting places,
dressing rooms and toilets were, for the most part, nonexistent. Excessive manipulation of
child labor was another typical feature of Mahmutpasa plants. A deputy who wrote the pages
concerning the working conditions in Mahmutpasa in the report expressed his feelings as
follows:
Having seen these textile workplaces, I need to confess my embarrassment for my
objections to Ministry of Labor Legal Advisor Mr. Muslih Fer’s legal arguments for
extending the coverage of the Labor Law to those workplaces which employ three
persons. Yet now I am in a position to demand the protection of even a single
employee through the legal legislation of the Ministry of Labor, for he needs to be
protected from this ruthless exploitation because he is the asset of the nation.504
What was most striking about these shops, however, was their phenomenal and endless
efforts to evade the provisions of the Labor Code. About half of the firms in Mahmutpasa,
502 BCA Catalog no [490.01/728.495.5]. “Bazı Bölgelerdeki Fabrika Đsyerleri Ve Đsçilerin Genel Durumu
Hakkında BMM Çalısma Komisyonundan Bir Grubun Hazırladıkları Rapor.”
503 Workers cited some of the names of these inns where the most awful health and safety conditions prevailed:
Uğurlu Han, Büyük Valde Han, Yeni Han, Yesil Han, Abut Efendi Hanı. See Kemal Sülker, “Besbin Mensucat
Đsçisi Durumlarını Açıklıyorlar,” Gece Postası, 15 August 1949.
504 “(B)u mensucat yerlerini gördükten sonra mecliste Çalısma Bakanlığı’nın üç amele çalıstıran is yerlerine
kadar Đs Kanununun Çalısma Bakanlığı Hukuk Müsaviri Muslih Fer’in kanuni müdafasına karsı bu is yerlerini
görmemis olmam dolayısıyla sert ettiğim itirazlardan dolayı simdi utanır vaziyette olduğumu bildirmek
vicdanımın bir ifadesidir. Ben hatta simdi bu yerleri gördükten sonra yaralı bir insan sıfatıyle amele adedini
hesap etmeyerek bir kisi dahi çalıssa kendi hayatı ve milletin malı olmak hesabıyle imha israftan korunma
kasdıyle Çalısma Bakanlığının mevzuatı arasına girmesini istemek vaziyetindeyim.” BCA Catalog no.
[490.01/728.495.5]. “Bazı Bölgelerdeki Fabrika Đsyerleri Ve Đsçilerin Genel Durumu Hakkında BMM Çalısma
Komisyonundan Bir Grubun Hazırladıkları Rapor.”
189
wrote the report, were small undertakings employing between five and nine workers. Yet an
equal number of firms were larger factories and workshops employing 10 to 50 workers.
These larger factories or workshops, which should have been subject to the Labor Code, were
divided into several firms among shareholders or relatives of the owner in order to escape the
regulations of the Labor Code. In such a way great majority of employers managed to keep
their firms outside the scope of the Code. For instance, the Yakutuledo Textile Firm was
divided into two manufacturing shops between the owner and his wife, each employing nine
workers. Therefore the employer evaded both the Labor Code and the obligations of the
transaction tax.505
Manipulating child labor was one common strategy employed in Mahmutpasa in order
to lower the labor costs and ensure a higher rate of return.506 Employers especially preferred
the young sons of the workers for they paid them half the wage paid to adult weavers. In times
of high demand ordinary labor might also be supplemented by labor of unpaid female family
members as well as child labor. By manipulating child labor manufacturers could also evade
the payment of transaction tax.507 Children often had to work at the looms long hours in order
505 Ibid.
506 The employment of children was regulated by the Public Health Law of 1930 as well as Labor Law as regards
to age, occupation and working hours. Children under the age of 12 were forbidden to be empoyed in industrial
undertakings. Those under the age of 16 might not be employed in any work for more than eight hours. Persons
under 18 might not be employed in underground or underwater work, or in any industrial work during the night.
See, Ahmet Makal, “Çocuktum, Ufacıktım: Türkiye’de 1920-1960 Döneminde Çocuk Đsçiliği.” in Ameleden
Đsçiye (Đstanbul: Đletisim Yayınları, 2007), pp. 330-331.
507 Workers were equally annoyed by the high transaction tax during the early 1950s which entailed a growing
demand for child workers in the labor market. Child labor not only threatened jobs, it was also regarded as a
moral danger. The below speech delivered by a unionist in the congress of the Đstanbul Textile and Weaving
Workers’ Trade Union in 1950 was typical in that manner:
“In all respects we observe the unfavorable effects of the transaction tax on the lives of working families. The
law concerning the transaction tax restricts our job opportunities, threatens our jobs. It has become fashionable to
employ little children among some of the employers due to the taxes. Some employers prefer young girls. There
are some who seduce these poor little girls. The other day I read a report in the evening newspaper telling the
story of an employer who has been brought to justice for seducing two little girls.” (Muamele vergisinin aile
190
to help their families and learn the trade. Early observations made by Gerhard Kessler508 and
Orhan Tuna on the exploitation of child labor in small scale weaving shops provide an ample
picture. Tuna’s :
Aside from the very low wages, this exploitation stems from the unsanitary and
uncontrollable working conditions… Generally each shop contains 5 to 8 looms, a
condition which is worsening the ventilation of the narrow and dark workplaces. It
is very difficult to depict the working conditions of these hundreds of children
because of the cruelty it represents. One can see hundreds of them ranging between
the ages of 9 and 10. Mostly, these children with pale eyes, scarred faces and weak
bodies are no more than 14. One can observe repeating head and foot movements in
these children as the result of monotonous and pedestrian nature of work performed
without adequate nourishment. They move back and forth repeatedly.509
The massive manipulation of child labor consolidated the patriarchal organization of
these workshops. Adult males dominated the weaving occupation.510 Family hiring was an
important foundation of this unit and many weavers brought their sons into the trade through
apprenticeships. Women, too, were used to set up machines, wind the warp and tend
machines. Specific tasks and wages were associated with sex and age, with unskilled work
hayatı üzerindeki fena tesirlerini her an görüyoruz. Muamele Vergisi Kanunu is sahalarımızı daraltıyor.
Çalısmayı tehdit ediyor. Bazı isverenlerin vergi korkusundan küçük çocuk çalıstırma isi moda haline geliyor.
Bazı isverenler küçük kızları tercih ediyorlar. Ne yaptıklarını bilmeyecek yasta is hayatına dökülen kızları iğfal
edenler görülüyor. Geçen gün bir aksam gazetesinde yanında çalıstırdığı iki kızı iğfal eden bir is verenin adalete
teslim edildiğini okudum.) Kemal Sülker, “Mensucat Đsçileri Sikayet ve Dileklerini Etraflıca Belirtti,” Gece
Postası, 7 November 1950.
508 Gerhard Kessler, “Türkiye’de Çocuk Say’i,” Đs Mecmuası, vol. 9, no. 34 (April 1943).
509 Orhan Tuna, “Sanayide Çocuk Say’i ve Çocuk Say’inin Korunmasına Matuf Mevzuat,” Đs Mecmuası, vol. 9,
no. 34 (April 1943). “Bu istismar ücretlerin azlığından baska, bir de çalısma sartlarının son derece gayri sıhhi
ve kontrolsüz olmasından tezahür etmektedir... Umumiyetle her dükkanda 5-8 tezgah vardır ki bu hal dar ve
karanlık çalısma yerinin hava vaziyetini pek ağırlastırmaktadır. Dükkanlarda görülen yüzlerce çocuğun çalısma
vaziyetini anlatmak fecaati dolayısıyla pek müsküldür. Umumiyetle gözleri hasta, yüzleri yaralı ve vücutları cılız
olan bu yavruların yasları 14’ü geçmemektedir. 9-10 yaslarında yüzlerce çocuğa tesadüf edilir. Gıdasız
çalısmanın muttarit ve yeknesak gidisine katlanan bu çocuklarda, islerinin itiyat ettirdiği ve çalısmadıkları
zaman da mütamediyen tezahür eden bas ve ayak hareketleri görülür. Dururken sallanmaktadırlar.”
510 In this manner the weaving occupation resembled much more to the French and American cases than the
English where traditionally the weavers were predominantly women. For a comparison between English and
French cases, see Alain Cottereau, “The Distinctiveness of Working-Class Cultures in France, 1848-1900,” in
Working-Class Formation, Ira Katznelson and Aristide R. Zolberg (eds.) (Princeton: Princeton University Press,
1986).
191
going generally to women and children. The sexual division of labor was most prominent in
the textile shops of Mahmutpasa.511 In this way employment relations resembled Burawoy’s
ideal-type of patriarchal factory regimes.512 Employers assented to such employment schemes
since they both saved considerable time and helped to maintain the loyalty of skilled male
workers. The family hiring and immediate control over production relative to larger plants
affirmed claims to a working class masculinity which was centered on freedom and
independence. This particular situation was also reflected in the male-dominated membership
structure of the trade union in Mahmutpasa.513 The family hiring system had also effect on the
form of skill acquisition as fathers would frequently train their sons in the skill of their job.
Since there are no detailed studies on the subject, we may only suppose that this system of
informal training within the family must have led to high degree of occupational continuity in
the trade.
Although weavers were highly productive, the technical and organizational aspects of
production posed several persistent problems for employers. First of all, after the end of the
war there was little technological advancement in the Mahmutpasa workshops and therefore
work discipline could not be imposed through mechanization as was the case, as will be seen,
in larger companies. Secondly, the narrow labor market of skilled and experienced weavers
bestowed the workers substantial control over the pace of production. Therefore the
511 Kemal Sülker, “Tekstil Asgari Ücretine Đsverenlerin Tespit Ettiği 3 Đtiraz,” Gece Postası, 22 February 1958.
Sülkler notes that about half of the employed in the textile sector came from the same family.
512 In patriarchal regimes, Burawoy defines, “production appartuses were based on, or imitative of, the
domination of the father over other members of the family. More specifically, the patriarchal regime involved a
collaboration between subcontractor and employer, so that the former offered and organized the labour of the
family or proto-family in exchange for changes and support of the autonomous domination of the patriarch over
women and children who assisted him... From the point of view of cotton masters, patriarchal apparatuses of
production had the advantage of containing struggles between subcontractor and his helpers by relying on family
bonds...” Michael Burawoy, The Politics of Production (London: Verso, 1992), p. 93.
513 Avni Erakalın, interview by author, tape recording, Aksaray, Đstanbul, 20 May 2010.
192
employers could increase labor productivity only through resorting to force514 and extending
the working time. Therefore, weavers’ vision of their work must have invoked a permanent
change during the period. The very rare testimonies suggest this by descriptions of injustices
committed by employers. These pressures began very early and might operate openly by
means of specification of ever more restrictive schedules and deadlines.
Most of the time, it should be noted, these pressures came into play implicitly by the
mechanism of subcontracting. According to one survey, around 85 percent of the
manufacturers in Mahmutpasa entered into subcontracting arrangements either with
independent traders or with big firms in the industry who provided the yarn and other raw
materials. Most of the manufacturers got a majority of their orders from wholesale
merchants.515 In the textile sector the predominant form of subcontracting relationship
involved the provision of raw materials at the beginning of the job. Payment at the end was
based on the length of the cloth woven at a preset price per meter.
Other than wholesalers, also big firms established subcontracting arrangements with
small manufacturers of Mahmutpasa. For instance, it was reported in early 1951 that Adalet
Mensucat mill downsized its production unit in weaving department and increasingly had
recourse to small scale manufacturers.516 It appears to be the case that large-scale firms
514 Beating and ill-treatment were particularly directed to the weakest (children, auxilary workers, temporary
workers etc.). Many employers abused their employees simply because they thought they could. They thought
the employee would never leave them, and if they did, they were replaceable. There were examples in which the
employer severely beat up his workers and received punishment for his act. Yet, the employers often got off
cheap from such charges. The penal system often sentenced them to pecuniary punishment. See TEKSĐF III.
Kongre 9.8.1953 – 3.9.1958 Dönemi Raporları (Đstanbul: 1958), p. 24.
515 Zaim, Đstanbul Mensucat Sanayiinin Bünyesi ve Ücretler, p. 147.
516 “Đssizlik Meselesi Yeniden Ciddi Bir Mesele Olarak Ele Alınmalıdır,” Gece Postası, 8 January 1951. Adalet
Mensucat had 80 wool weaving looms. According to the report even though the empoyer laid off half of the
weavers, the output of the factory did not decrease. The employer preferred to go outsourcing probably for two
reasons. First, labor productivity was greater in Mahmutpasa due to concentration of qualified weavers in the
distict. Second, the employers could evade the transaction tax by making subcontracting arrangements with
small-scale workshops. For many observors transaction tax was the major factor that impeded the development
of large-scale firms since the 1930s. However, during the DP government period the transaction tax rates would
193
increasingly found it cheaper or easier to have portions of their product subcontracted to small
scale firms in Mahmutpasa on either a full-time basis or per item basis; which might have
provided another avenue of survival for the small scale producers of Mahmutpasa. On the part
of large scale factories, subcontracting arrangements may have freed them from the more
technical problems concerned with production, process improvement and labor supervision
and enabled them to devote more attention to financial and marketing problems.
It is worth noting that such subcontracting relations with wholesalers and big
manufacturers forced the small employers to increase output by putting more pressure on the
weavers through long working hours and imposing tacit deadlines. It also explains, as we
shall return below, the vitality of a dual labor market for weavers.
There was no standard workday in Mahmutpasa. There were no clocks and no official
time keepers. Work often started very early in the morning and continued until late in the
evening. While many workplaces were closed about nine in the district, the door keepers of
these inns kept doors open and workers started the work again after eleven in the evening.517
In times of high demand the working time were expanded as much as 16 hours in a day.518
Weavers expressed the conditions in the shops to the journalists in the most dramatic manner.
For weavers Mahmutpasa was a big “grinding mill”, smashing and crashing the bodies and
souls of thousands of workers everyday:
be reduced regularly. See Sevket Süreyya Aydemir, Suyu Arayan Adam (Đstanbul: Remzi Kitabevi, 1993), p.
454.
517 The labor law provided for a maximum 48 hour working week and a working day of eight/nine hours, with a
maximum of three hours overtime. The weekly rest period was 38 hours minimum.
518 It is worth noting that shoemakers who shared the inns of Mahmutpasa with weavers also were subjected to
the same working conditions. However with their strong unions “Mahmutpasa question” became identified
solely with weavers. For a brief description of working conditions in shoemaking shops, see Kemal Sülker,
“Geceleri Zorla Mesai Yaptırılan Ayakkabıcılar,” Gece Postası, 26 May 1954. See also Hadi Malkoç, “Han
Bodrumlarında Çürüyen Kundura Đsçileri,” Sendika Gazetesi, 7 September 1946. According to Malkoç, the
number of shoemakers working in the inns and in the basements of the worst buildings of Đstanbul was
approximately ten thousand.
194
We work in a cave. That is why our skin is so yellow. We are all skin and bones
because we work 16 hours in a day. Will you believe when we say that we are afraid
of seeing a doctor? Because we know that he will say, “you have tuberculosis” and
we do not want to hear this terrible fact.519
Many examples of 13 hours of child work were presented by the unionist workers in
the 1950 congress of the Mahmutpasa branch of the textile workers’ union. Workers also
complained that since they were not included in the Labor Law, their right to weekend and
festive holidays was not recognized.520 In times of low demand or raw material shortage,
however, employers might easily show them the door.521
Then how did the weavers accept the terms of working conditions in Mahmutpasa?
Why did they go along with even 16 hours of working day in suffocating, damp and dirty
workshops? Why did they not quit jobs? These questions are quite valid ones when we
consider that there had always been high demand for experienced weavers in the labor market
throughout the 1940s and 1950s. A significant portion of employer applications to the
Employment Office was for weavers. Even in the late 1950s, when unemployment in textiles
was on a rise due to foreign currency shortage as an outcome of the 1958 Stabilization
Program,522 the newspapers were full of job advertisements given by manufacturers who were
519 “Biz mağarada çalısıyoruz. Rengimizin sarılığı bundandır. Bir deri bir kemik kalmıssak bu her gün 16 saat
çalısmamızdandır. Doktora gitmeye korktuğumuzu söylesek inanır mısınız? Çünkü bize “Veremlisiniz”
diyeceklerini biliyor ve bu korkunç hakikati duymak istemiyoruz.” Kemal Sülker, ”Mahmutpasa Mensucat
Atölyelerinde Đnleyenler,” Gece Postası, 14 August 1949. Weavers emphasized the unsanitary conditions in the
workplaces on every occasions. In one workplace an ill-looking weaver cried out the collective demand of
workers: “A sanitary campaign should be started in Mahmutpasa. Workers should be rescued.” See “Besbin
Mensucat Đsçisi Durumlarını Açıklıyorlar”, Gece Postası, 15 August 1949. Evidences reveal that workers were
well aware of the link between tuberclosis and the terrible working conditions in shops. This is exampled in the
words of one weaver who suffered from tuberculosis: “Tuberclosis is welcomed to the workplace which evades
from the labor law.” Kemal Sülker, “Büyük Đsçi Röportajı,” Gece Postası, 17 Ekim 1951.
520 See “Basından Đsçi Haberleri”. BCA Catalog no. [490.01/204.812.2].
521 Hıfzı Topuz, “Đssizlik Davası Ne Zaman Halledilecek,” Aksam, 7 February 1952.
522 In 1959, New York Times reported that of 10,770 workers in Đstanbul industrial plants covered by the Labor
Law, 1000 were laid off as of the end of 1958. There were 1050 workers working half time and 500 were
threatened by lay-offs. In 1959 around 300 textile establishments in Đstanbul have reduced production by 80
195
looking for experienced weavers.523 The unqualified workforce was a long-term problem for
the industry and worried the employers well after 1950s. Few large plants trained unskilled
workers in their own training departments before putting them to work in actual production.
Many firms were unable to establish expensive training schemes. Even in the early 1970s
there was only one school in Turkey which offered vocational training in textiles. The
Sultanahmet Art School, which had been founded in 1939, had a small department for training
weavers.524 From time to time the Employment Office opened night classes to train weavers,
yet it was unable to meet the growing demand in the market.525
What attracted workers to the Mahmutpasa shops was, probably, the high wages
offered to experienced weavers. In the late 1940s an experienced weaver could earn as much
as 8 liras in a day, which was twice the price paid to the weavers in many big factories.
Another survey in 1954 discovered that the average daily earnings of weavers in Mahmutpasa
textile shops was 930 kurus. This was the maximum wage offered in textiles and was
particularly due to the high proportion of experienced and qualified weavers in the district.526
Another survey conducted by the textile workers trade union in 1953 found out the average
daily wage level in Mahmutpasa was around 788 kurus, while it was 556 kurus in the rest of
the industry.527
percent and laid off 3000 workers. In Đzmir, 1120 workers were reported to be laid off in textiles. See “Jobless
Increase Worrying Turks,” New York Times, 14 January 1959.
523 Despite the growing unemployment in textiles, Kemal Sülker wrote, “the weavers are on black market”.
Kemal Sülker, “Đssizlerin Đstanbul’a Akını Davası,” Gece Postası, 1 May 1958.
524 Sabahattin Zaim’s Speech in Tekstil semineri, 12-14 Temmuz 1971 (Ankara: Sümerbank Yayınları, 1971), p.
30.
525 Đs ve Đsçi Bulma Kurumu; Sedat Nurova, “Đs Kurumları”, Đsçi Gücü, 15 November 1951.
526 Zaim, Đstanbul Mensucat Sanayiinin Bünyesi ve Ücretler, pp. 234-235.
527 Ibid. pp. 213-215.
196
When asked about their daily earnings, weavers seemed to be quite aware of their
advantageous position when compared to weavers in the big factories; they even complained
more about long working hours and the high-speed rhythm of the work. As one worker told in
1949: “Every day we shuttle back and forth eight thousand times. Some of us earn as much as
8 liras in a day, but damn that earning. It is not worth of it.”528
Despite these words of a unionist worker, it seems that higher earnings in the small
shops kept workers seeking jobs in Mahmutpasa.529 Avni Erakalın, who had been one of the
leading organizers in the Mahmutpasa branch of the Textile Workers’ Union in the early
1950s, before he became the general secretary of the same union, confirms this observation by
saying that Mahmutpasa weavers never preferred to leave the district for job offerings from
larger plants since they were always paid better for the extra work in Mahmutpasa shops. He
also added that that some employers made the weavers partners to evade the Labor Law after
1952, might have enhanced the loyalty of workers and strengthened their ties to the firms.530
In effect, as shall be discussed below, the persistence of small manufacturing in Mahmutpasa
and its contractionary effect on the labor market for weavers throughout the period had also
determining effects on the shop floor strategies of employers and reactions of workers in big
firms.
Yet this did not mean that weavers totally bowed to the working conditions imposed
on them. Mahmutpasa weavers struggled to improve their conditions and forced the
employers to go for a reduction in the work-day throughout the late 1940s and early 1950s.
528 Kemal Sülker, “Bes bin Mensucat Đsçisi Durumlarını Açıklıyorlar,” Gece Postası, 15 August 1949.
529 It is interesting to note that Ayhan Aktar’s study on working conditions in small textile firms in Bursa during
the early 1980s reveals similar findings. According to the study weavers in small shops work longer but earn
more compared to weavers in big mills. Ayhan Aktar, Kapitalizm, Azgelismislik ve Türkiye’de Küçük Sanayi
(Đstanbul: AFA Yayıncılık, 1990), p. 246.
530 Avni Erakalın, interview by Barıs Alp Özden, tape recording, Đstanbul, 20 May 2010.
197
“The cause of the Mahmutpasa weaver,” as it was often acclaimed in the concerned public,
was one of the most important struggles during the period.531 Since many workplaces fell out
of the sanctions of the labor legislation, the weavers could not manipulate legal channels like
collective labor disputes. Yet they organized to get into action. By 1952, many Mahmutpasa
weavers were organized under the Đstanbul Textile and Weaving Workers Union532 and made
out a declaration stating that they were determined to struggle for a change in the
Mahmutpasa shops. They stated that if they were left with no choice except to go into hunger
strike, they would not hesitate to start that.533 Meanwhile there were recurrent reports in the
press of the efforts of the textile union to contain the temper of the workers who threatened to
stop the work collectively.534 In 1953 weavers started a campaign for “8 hours work, 8 hours
recreation and 8 hours sleep.” In the meantime Textile Workers Union sent letters to deputies
of Đstanbul, asking them to bring the cause of the Mahmutpasa weaver to the agenda in the
National Assembly.535 TEKSĐF regarded the issue as a collective conspiracy of the employers
in Mahmutpasa and made several attempts to attract the interest of the political parties.536 A
group of Đstanbul deputies visited the workplaces in the districts and observed the working
conditions in the inn basements and dark galleries.537
531 “Đs Kanununa Muhalif Hareket Edenler,” Đstanbul Ekspres, 8 November 1952.
532 In 1952, around 1400 workers were enrolled in the Mahmutpasa branch of the Textile and Weaving Workers’
Union. Mahmutpasa was the fourth largest branch in Đstanbul.
533 “Yakında Bütün Đsçiler Açlık Grevine Baslayacak,” Đstanbul Ekspres, 11 March 1952.
534 “Dokumacı Đsverenler ile Đsçiler Arasında Đtilaf,” Milliyet, 11 October 1952; “Đsçilerin Açlık Grevi
Tesebbüsü,” Milliyet, 15 March 1952.
535 “Mahmutpasa Đsçileri And Đçti: 8 Saat Çalısacaklar,” Gece Postası, 5 October 1953
536 TEKSĐF III. Kongre 9.8.1953 – 3.9.1958 Dönemi Raporları (Đstanbul: 1958), p. 24.
537 Kemal Sülker, “Mahmutpasa’da Đsverenlerin de Đsçilerin de Çesitli Dertleri Var,” Gece Postası, 1 August
1953.
198
In the meantime three union militants, Avni Erakalın, Saban Yıldız and Celal Beyaz,
were making visits to shops after midnights. Erakalın tells that these visits had two aims.
First, they were trying to convince the weavers to stop work after a maximum of twelve
hours. Second, they were seeking to annoy the employers and force them to close the shops.
However, these visits often were interrupted by the intervention of the police and sometimes
ended at the police station.538 After several attempts of the union and weavers, the
municipality determined to restrict the working day by one o’clock at night539. But even this
was ineffective. In 1952, special control teams were organized under the authority of the
municipality to check the workplaces after the midnight. These teams were given the
authority to write down reports about the workplaces which were open after one o’clock and
many reports were sent to prosecution.540 Upon this, the Mahmutpasa Power-Operated Small
Scale Industry Weavers’ Cooperative initiated the movement of a group of small shops to
remote places in Rami-Topçular, where the employers believed they could get escape the
pressures of the union and midnight controls of the municipality.541 By the end of the 1954 a
new small weaving industry area with 200 power looms had been established in this place.542
However, the establishment of an alternative industrial area did not slow down the
growth of Mamutpasa, which had a comparative advantage over Rami-Topçular due to its
closeness to Sultanhamam textile market. Wholesale merchants preferred to continue business
538 Avni Erakalın, interview by author, tape recording, Đstanbul, 20 May 2010.
539 “Mahmutpasa Đhtilafı Vilayette Đncelendi,” Gece Postası, 8 October 1953.
540 At the first of these irregular controls some 30 workshops on Mahmutpasa slope and Caferağa street were
detected as not complying with the regulations of the Law on Weekly Rest Day. “Đs Kanununa Muhalif Hareket
Edenler,” Đstanbul Ekspres, 8 November 1952.
541 Đstanbul Tekstil ve Örme Sanayii Đsçileri Sendikası 1953-1954 Senesi Faaliyet Raporu (Đstanbul: Faik Paran
Matbaası, 1954), pp. 12-14; “Topkapı Dısında Dokuma Sitesi Kuruluyor,” Milliyet, 1 November 1954;
“Mahmutpasa Dokuma Atölyeleri Tasınacak,” Aksam, 30 May 1954.
542 Zaim, p. 148.
199
with Mahmutpasa weaving manufacturers. By 1956, around 8000 workers were employed in
nearly 1000 small scale workshops in the district.
By that time workers were still suffering from unlawful practices of employers. 12-16
hours of work was still common in the shops and the paid weekend holiday was not applied
by the majority.543 The municipality put an end to unannounced night controls in the mid-
1954 when the authority to check the workplaces was transferred to the police.544 The
neighborhood police were reluctant to push the employers to conform the law probably
because they had established links to the employers.545
In the second half of the 1950s, nothing much had changed in the Mahmutpasa
workplaces. Around 4000-5000 weavers were still suffering from long hours of work in the
dark and airless shops of Mahmutpasa in the late 1958.546 Yet, the struggles throughout the
years had effects of raising consciousness and articulated their collective demands. From the
mid-1950s on weavers were more determined to support the right to strike which was
beginning to be perceived as the only effective and powerful way to defend the cause of labor.
On the 1956 congress of the union, one weaver enthusiastically called for a campaign to
543 Kemal Sülker, “Mahmutpasa Dokuma Đsçilerinin Ezeli Derdi,” Gece Postası,16 January 1956;
“Mahmutpasa’da Đs Kanunu Hala Neden Yok,” Gece Postası, 17 June 1957.
544 In the mid-1954 Mahmutpasa weavers made a last attempt by applying to Ministry of Internal Affairs for
restricting the working hours in small scale shops. Yet, the mininstry did not even respond to weavers’ demands.
“Dokuma Đsçileri,” Đsçi Sesi, 15 May 1954.
545 “Mahmutpasa’da Kontrol Ekipleri Đsi Bıraktılar,” Gece Postası, 27 April 1954. Avni Erakalın remembers that
even the police commisioner, Hüseyin Çelebi, who was responsible for the trade unions in the Đstanbul Security
Directorate had become an employer in Mahmutpasa during the crisis of the mid 1950s when some employers
had to sell their looms on the spot.
546 “Mahmutpasa Dokumacıları Bugün Toplantı Yapıyor,” Gece Postası, 23 Ekim 1958.
200
legalize strikes. “We who are competent on working the most delicate machines are also able
to make use of the instrument of strike in the most effective and proper way.” 547
In the rest of this chapter how the economic and social factors prevailing in the
weaving industry put its stamp on workplace culture and labor struggle when joined with
newly introduced scientific management techniques will be discussed. Against Taylor’s claim
that scientifically managed shops would never suffer a strike, eliminated the conflict between
workers and unions and rendered trade unions unnecessary, we shall see that in practice
attempts to introduce Taylorism was met with strong labor opposition and drew workers to
organize in the union.
Scientific Management in Mensucat Santral and Workers’ Response
Thus for capital the logic of the labor process is to seek to increase labor productivity
by extending strategies and techniques of “real subordination”548 in order to bring labor more
completely under its control. But since the labor process only can be performed by humans
and not by automatons then those men and women constantly struggle over the limits at which
control begins and ends. Therefore the labor process, to quote Price, “is above all else a social
547 “Tekstil Đsçileri Grev Hakkı Đstiyor”, Milliyet, 28 May 1956.
548 The distinction between “formal” and “real” subordination of labor to capital is made by Marx in his analysis
of the changing character of labor process in the transition from manufacture to modern industry. In this analysis
the subordination to capital becomes real in the sense that it rested not solely upon the structure of the ownership
but also upon the degree of capitalist control of the production process. For the relevance of these categories in
the historiography of labor, see Gareth Stedman Jones, Languages of Class (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1983), especially introduction.
201
process in which the technical characteristics of a particular work environment shape and
condition the forms of struggle for authority and control.”549
Saying this implies a couple of postulates concerning the relationship between
resistance and subordination. First of all, this relation should be conceived as a dynamic
process rather than a static system in which any side of the relationship cannot be completely
successful forever. It is always necessary to remember that the forces which demanded
managerial control of labor are not abstract categories frozen in time, but part of a continually
moving historical dynamic. The second point, which can be derived from the first, implies
that control is never guaranteed and the techniques and technologies employed never
foreclose the possibility that they can be challenged and modified by worker resistance. As
Burawoy notes, the social function of technology as a means of establishing control is well
recognized in the labor process literature; but less investigation has been directed towards the
role of the class struggle in shaping workplace relations.550 Having this in mind, this section
of the chapter aims to suggest an alternative avenue to study working class struggles.
Following Price, who suggests that the struggle over control of the labor process is a struggle
inherent in the logic of capitalist production itself, we argue that shop floor bargaining,
unofficial movements and resistances, informal structures at the workplace can be alternative
areas to study working class action and subjectivity. Such an analysis challenges one of the
the basic premises of the labor historiography in Turkey, which regards the period as “silent
years” in terms of working class struggle.
549 Richard Price, “The Labour Process and Labour History,” Social History, vol. 8, no. 1 (January 1983), p. 63.
550 Michael Burawoy, The Politics of Production, p. 41. According to Burawoy, Braverman and labor historians
who accepted his approach limited their analyses to objective features of work under capitalism, leaving the
impression that the lived experience of work was one of increasing misery as workers lost control over the labor
process, but not theorizing objectivity. In addition they made a common mistake by acknowledging management
as so successful in expropriating knowledge and power that whatever workers’ consciousness, the class played
little role in shaping workplace struggles.
202
To begin with, we need to depict an overall picture of the technological foundation and
the production process in large scale textile undertakings. The equipment and production
chain of a typical large scale weaving mill in Turkey during the period was as follows: as they
entered the factory, tightly packed bales of raw cotton or sheep fleeces were stripped down on
openers where the material were sorted and classified. Then the raw material moved to
stretching frames which beat and crushed the material onto large drums. From here cotton or
fleece wool was sent to carding frame rooms where fibers were combed into parallel lines
prior to primary spinning. When cotton moved into preparatory department, first it went to
drawing frame rooms and second it went to flyer frame rooms which produced rovings for
final spinning. Then roving bobbins were transported to fine spinning halls where self-acting
mules or ring frames spun fine threads of diverse thickness appropriate for various types of
weaving. Finally, thread was sent to weaving which was established as a separate department.
In weaving departments, where 25-30 percent of the operatives worked, most looms where
single-shuttle or multi-shuttle power looms.551
The first thing to note about all this equipment is its advanced age before the early
1950s. In Santral Mensucat, for instance, most of the looms had been obtained from Germany
when the mill was established in 1929. In Defterdar, most of the weaving looms were much
older. Many weaving mills obtained newer and high speed technology machines in the late
1940s and early 1950s thanks partially to the credits extended by IBRD. In 1950, IBRD was
put in charge of directing the Marshall Plan Private Enterprise Fund which aimed to help
finance the foreign exchange requirements for the establishment or expansion of private
551 See Simsek, Feshane Mensucat Fabrikası, pp.23; Đstanbul Ansiklopedisi, vol. 8, s.v. “Defterdar Mensucat
Fabrikası,” pp. 4341-4344; Đstanbul Ansiklopedisi, vol. 4, s.v. “Bakırköy Bez Fabrikası”, pp.1905-1906.
203
industrial enterprises.552 Santral Mensucat was one of the first mills that received credits from
this fund. In the early 1950s technological infrastructure of the mill was completely renewed
with the import of modern machinery from the US.553 In 1951 Santral Mensucat had 232
advance technology automatic looms. In the same year 680 full time operative and auxiliary
workers were employed in the mill. In a couple of years 168 new looms were added to this
number. Yet the number of workers remained roughly the same.554
Santral Mensucat was the only private mill in Đstanbul which established a sound
scientific management system as early as 1942 under the auspices of Swiss engineers.555 The
stop watch, incentive bonuses and other discipline techniques were introduced to the firm
between 1942 and 1944 by these engineers. With the Swiss engineers, the employers of the
firm Refik and Fuat Bezmen told a journalist in 1951 that the productivity rate in the mill had
increased from 35 percent to 75 percent in less than two years.556 These engineers came from
the branch office of the Bedaux Company in Stockholm. The Charles E. Bedaux Co., which
was established in 1916, utilized work accounting and control methods generally derived from
Taylorism. By the eve of Second World War, the Bedaux Company had grown into a
European headquartered multi-national consulting firm with branch offices in diverse cities
552 Tolga Tören, Yeniden Yapılanan Dünya Ekonomisinde Marshall Planı ve Türkiye Uygulaması (Đstanbul:
Sosyal Arastırmalar Vakfı, 2007), p. 246.
553 Serpil Yılmaz, “Fuat Bezmen’in 100’üncü Yılında ‘Güzel ve Çirkin Öyküsü,” Milliyet, 5 May 2009.
554 S.S.A., “Yedikule: Mensucat Santral Fabrikası,” Mensucat Meslek Dergisi, vol. 4, no. 6 (June 1951), p. 193.
555 It is worth reminding that Santral Mensucat was one of the three largest textile mills established in Đstanbul.
The other two were Defterdar and Bakırköy mill both owned by state. These three big firms employed about 32
percent of textile workers.
556 Ibid.; Akarlı, p. 46.
204
such as Paris, Milan, London, Berlin, Stockholm, Sydney and New York. At its height, the
Bedaux system was used to control the labor of 675,000 workers in 720 companies.557
Like Taylor, Bedaux’ stated goal was the increase of profits through cutting unit labor
costs and increasing productivity. It was principally a method of speeding up the already
mechanized, subdivided and simplified labor of semi-skilled and unskilled industrial
operatives, generally introducing only minor changes in the work process as such. What it
primarily did was to alter the management of production, the direction, evaluation and
incentive of work, changing the relationship between workers and foremen, and enabling
upper management to see statistically how much was produced by each and every worker on
the shop floor.558 The heart of the Bedaux system was the standardization of production
quotas. Each job was specified and evaluated. The workers were categorized into different
groups according to their skill, effort, responsibility and superintendence, and the wage was
adjusted according to this job evaluation system.
In Mensucat Santral, the primary group that worked on piece rates was the weavers
and the operatives in printing shops. The operatives in other departments and auxiliary
workers – the set-up man, inspector, truck driver, and foreman – were on time rates. In the
piece rate system established in Santral Mensucat the earnings of the weavers was divided as
a basic wage and bonuses. Some weavers initially thought this as a means to earn more
money, until they discovered that for such jobs the promising wages were impossible to
obtain.559 Bedaux engineers were brought to the mill without consulting the workers.
557 Yves Levant and Marc Nikitin, “Charles Eugéne Bedaux (1886-1944): ‘Cost Killer’ or Utopian Socialist?”
Accounting, Business & Financial History, vol. 19, no. 2 (July 2009), p. 171.
558 For the practical uses of Bedaux system on the shop floor, see Jeremy R. Egolf, “The Limits of Shop Floor
Struggle: Workers vs. the Bedaux System at Willapa Harbor Lumber Mills, 1933-1935,” Labor History, vol. 26,
no. 2 (Spring 1985), pp. 200-202; See also ILO, Payment by Results.
559 Avni Erakalın, interview by author, tape recording, Aksaray, Đstanbul, 20 May 2010.
205
Workers’ experience and intelligence were not utilized in devising methods for improving the
production process. The basic wage was often conceived as “formality” by the workers, since
it did not constitute a guaranteed minimum. While some workers’ earnings might be increased
with Bedaux incentives, the hourly wages (wage incomes per unit of output) were invariably
reduced.
Second, the hourly wage was a disciplinary mechanism. Workers knew well that they
could not afford to be ill with an hourly wage that low. Set aside the minimum wage, the
earnings were directly proportional to the number of pieces produced. Each piece had a price,
supposedly fixed at a rate that would allow operators to make their hourly wage, which was
pegged at an output of a hundred percent. By following the directions of the blueprint,
workers found that it was impossible to produce the pieces at a rate which would earn them
their hourly wage. Moreover, the piece-rate system did not allow any time for setting up,
getting pieces checked and other contingencies. To make the hourly wage, let alone a living
wage, operatives had to break the rules and safety regulations by increasing speeds and feeds,
and taking dangerous short-cuts. Only in this way an operative could produce over a hundred
percent.560 The premium system also was used to enhance managerial control through giving
more power to foremen and superintendents. A high bonus was paid to the foreman or the
section superintendent in whose department the maximum number of wefts in a given month
was woven. By awarding bonuses to the foremen, Mensucat Santral was managing to control
the workforce through a high level of supervision and therefore could turn out high quality
production.561 On the part of workers, the cooperation at work led to continuous and frequent
560 Kemal Sülker, “Mensucat Santral’de Anlasmayı Bozan Đsverendir,” Gece Postası, 24 June 1954.
561 Akarlı, p. 49.
206
contact and immediate exchange between the operatives and the foremen. In this way workers
actually paid the foremen for speeding up them.
The workers’ unrest at Santral Mensucat magnified in late 1953, when the
management laid off the elected worker representative, Rıza Güven. The 1950 amendments to
the Labor Code had provided some legal security for worker representatives against the
pressures of the employers. According to the regulation a worker representative could have
recourse to Provincial Arbitration Committee (Đl Hakem Kurulu) if he/she was fired. If the
committee adjudicated that the behavior of the employer was unjustified, the representative
was to be accepted back to his work in the company.562 Nevertheless, notwithstanding the
protective regulations of the law, there were recurrent reports in the press about the increasing
pressure of the employers on worker representatives. Between the years 1950 and 1953, 16 of
the total 45 labor disputes delivered to the Provincial Arbitration Committee (the third stage
of the collective labor dispute settlement procedure) in the textile industry were about
dismissal of representatives.563 The laying-off of Rıza Güven, however, attracted the
attentions of a wider public in Santral Mescucat, for Güven was a well-know trade unionist
and still executed the vice presidency of the Đstanbul Textile and Weaving Industry Workers’
Trade Union.564
What made the case more disturbing particularly for the workers was that the employer
of Santral Mensucat did not allow Güven to return to his work in spite of the Committee
decree. It seemed to be the case that the employer was particularly uneasy about Güven’s
presence in the workplace. Güven was a tough unionist. He had raised at least five individual
562 Ahmet Makal, Türkiye’de Çok Partili Dönemde Çalısma Đliskileri, 1946-1963 (Đstanbul: Đmge Yayınevi,
2002), pp. 345-346.
563 Ibid., 347.
564 “Đsçileri Sendikadan Soğutmak Đsteyen Đsveren,” Gece Postası, 18 April 1954.
207
labor disputes against the company since 1951; and all of them had been concluded on behalf
of him.565
By 1954, there was high tension on the shop floor level in Santral Mensucat. In this
context the decision of the management that the weavers would operate more machines at a
time became the straw that broke the camel’s back. Investment in standardized, higher
technology machines coincided with the intensification of work per operative. As Marx
argued for the mid-nineteenth century England, machinery was adopted to intensify labor and
produce more in a shorter time: “This occurs in two ways: the speed of the machine is
increased, and the same worker receives a greater quantity of machinery to supervise or
operate.”566 Both of these things were observed from the late 1940s in Turkey (with a
century’s delay), with improved engines, higher running engines and more looms per
operative.
Until then, in the Santral Mensucat mill a weaver operated four, six, eight or ten looms
according to qualification of the operative or the age and type of machines for which he was
responsible. In March 1954, the management presented a new blueprint, according to which
the number of looms operated by each weaver would be doubled. Even some workers had to
operate 24 looms at the same time. The management defended its decision by declaring that it
was a justified act, for all “scientific studies” had proven that a weaver could tend up to 130
machines at a time. In the European countries, the average was 70 looms per weaver. In the
United States each weaver operated 100 looms. Even in one Sümerbank plant established in
Halkapınar, one weaver tended up to 48 looms.567 In the Sümerbank Bakırköy Cotton Cloth
565 “Đsçi Mümessilinin Đsverene Açtığı Dava,” Gece Postası, 19 May 1955.
566 Marx, Capital vol. I, p. 536. Quoted in Robert Gray, The Factory Question and Industrial England, 1830-
1860 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), p. 215.
567 “Santral Mensucat’ta Đhtilaf,” Aksam, 17 June 1954.
208
Mill the speed-up program that provided performance and speed enhancement started in 1950
after the technological infrastructure of the mill had been modernized.568 In early 1953,
weavers who had been working 12 looms were assigned to operate 18 looms in the same
mill.569 Therefore, the managers of Santral Mensucat argued, the competitive conditions in the
market were compelling them to take this step. However, the workers were noticeably less
pleased with the changes brought by the management, which would “force the last piece of
effort out of workers at the smallest possible cost in wages.”570
It is worth adding that the piece rates system was not imposed exclusively on weavers.
Workers in the printing shop also worked at piece rates. However, the most overt resistance to
the system was led by weaving men with many years of local pre-Bedaux work experience
(actually, most of the operatives of the printing shop quit the mill in the first couple of weeks
after the introduction of the speed-up program).571 As has been noted, the weaver’s trade was
considered to be more a skilled, prestigious and highly paid profession than any other job in
the sector. Moreover the persistence of small manufacturing centered around Mahmutpasa
narrowed down the labor market for employers who sought to recruit experienced weavers.
Some workers even referred to weavers as a labor aristocracy. Of course weavers never
functioned as independent artisans, and the discretion content of their work was minimal,
limited almost exclusively to questions of pace and intensity. But combined with the difficulty
of gaining access to their ranks and their higher level of education the small degree of
568 Kemal Sülker, “Üç Misli Büyüyen Fabrika Đsçi Sayısını Pek az Arttırdı,” Gece Postası, 28 January 1951;
“Bakırköy Sümerbank Pamuklu Sanayii Müessesesinde Bir Gün,” Gece Postası, 24 January 1951.
569 “Bakırköy Bez Fabrikası,” Gece Postası, 9 January 1953. The speed-ups and compensation system applied in
Sümerbank textile factories were criticized in several reports presented to the third congress of the Federation of
Textile Workers’ Trade Unions (TEKSĐF). See TEKSĐF III. Kongre 9.8.1953 – 3.9.1958 Dönemi Raporları
(Đstanbul: 1958).
570 Kemal Sülker, “Mensucat Santral Fabrikasında Anlasmayı Bozan Đsverendir!” Gece Postası, 19 June 1954.
571 “Tekstil Sanayinde Tatbik Edilen Bedo Sistemi ve Çesitli Mahzurları,” Gece Postası, 20 April 1954.
209
autonomy that the weavers could enjoy in the early years of the factory’s existence elevated
them in the eyes of their fellow workers. Their discretionary power on the job they performed
was the real point that annoyed the employer in respect to productivity. In the early 1950s, it
seems, the management for the first time seized the opportunity to impose more time and
work discipline on weavers (and break the relative power of weavers in the bargaining
process on the shop floor) with the employment of standardized modern machinery cum the
Bedaux system.
The weavers’ response to Bedaux speed-ups and increased performance controls and
calculations was strong. The unionists were distressed that the new methods undermined
amicable working conditions. By individualizing wages and speeding up work pace, workers
were forced to race each other. Some unionists were particularly anxious about the exhausting
character of working on many machines at the same time. Many believed that the system was
unfair to the workers as a whole. Older workers could not move fast enough and the young
and inexperienced workers failed to achieve efficiency norms. Süreyya Kara Aslan, a weaver
and active union militant at the Yedikule branch pointed out that for many workers in the
weaving and printing departments, this was the reason for quitting jobs.572 The exhausting
nature of the pace of the work was revealed by one worker as follows:
I have no strength in my knees. Tending 24 machines all along eight hours means
running 40 kilometers a day. When I complain to the foremen, they say ‘You may
work or leave; the door is over there.’ Those who claim their rights have been fired.
They have chanted something called bonus; if you are absent from work even one
day, they cut the bonus from the wage. Then you lose 60 liras at once.573
572 Ibid.; Kemal Sülker, “Mensucat Santral Fabrikasında Anlasmayı Bozan Đsverendir,” Gece Postası, 19 June
1954.
573 “Dizlerimde derman yok. Sekiz saat 24 tezgahla uğrasmak günde 40 kilometre kosmak demektir.
Ustalarımıza sikayet ediyorum: “Bakarsan bak, bakmazsan kapı orda!” diyorlar. Haklarını arayanlar islerinden
çıkarılmıstır. Sürprim diye bir sey tutturdular; ayda bir gün ise gelmeyince bu sürprimi kesiyorlar. Aylık
birdenbire 60 lira azalıyor.” “Tekstil Sanayinde Tatbik Edilen Bedo Sistemi ve Çesitli Mahzurları,” Gece
Postası, 20 April 1954.
210
Some others were concerned that the long arm of speed-ups disrupted family and
social life outside the work. One worker said: “I arrive home dead beat. Men are so
overworked that they cannot even go to bed with their wives at night.”574
Not surprisingly, there were fierce struggles over the calculation and assignment of
norms and considerable invention in the measurement and recording of output - so much
invention that although a large majority of workers theoretically worked above their norms,
production at the plant continually fell below the preexisting levels.575 Yet, although the
impact of the differentiated wage policy on labor productivity may have been questionable, its
effect on the understanding of workers was plain. Workers were individualized and their
performance was measured on a percentage basis, which permitted ready comparisons. The
most apparent and sharpest effect of the system on workers’ lives was the falling earnings.
For this very same reason the bulk of the trade unions had declared their hostility to piece rate
compensation systems.576
For many workers, piece rates made the “cash nexus” extremely fragile.577 In the
congress of the Yedikule branch of the textile workers’ union, many weavers contended that
even if they worked harder on more machines their monthly earnings decreased noticeably.
For instance, Ayhan Arda told that while he had received around 280 liras in a month when he
was tending 12 looms, his earnings had decreased by 40 liras after having started to operate
20 looms. Another weaver, Osman Türker said that his monthly earning dropped from 250 to
574 Avni Erakalın, interview with author, tape recording, Aksaray, Đstanbul, 20 May 2010.
575 According to Erakalın the efficiency in the mill fell by 50 percent after the first month of the application of
speed-ups.
576 Özçelik, 1930-1950 Arasında Tütüncülerin Tarihi, p. 159.
577 “Yedikule Tekstil Đsçileri Ücret Sistemini Kötüledi,” Gece Postası, 19 April 1954.
211
192 liras after starting to operate ten machines instead of four. Still other workers contended
that the system was erratic in its application and no one could anticipate his wage earnings
before seeing the payrolls. The ups and downs in cash amounts drastically limited one’s
ability to assure his or his family’s survival.578
These experiences of unevenness of variation and of incalculability which directly
affected the ability to plan for the immediate future, was the major source of unrest among all
the laborers who worked in piece work. For example, in another private weaving mill
established in Topkapı, Maltepe, frequent reductions in piece rates which started with the
speeding up program compelled the weavers to do overtime work.579 In Defterdar, where the
Bedaux system had been put into practice much earlier, workers frequently felt the burden of
work intensification and rate cuts which left their end of month earnings in complete
haziness.580 The looms frequently broke down and the warp yarn was often rotten. Weaving
looms often stopped since the weavers found themselves rejoining broken threads and
repairing the machines. Under such conditions the output of each operative changed from day
to day. The weavers told that this put greater pressure on them to speed up work when
machines were repaired: “I earn 200 lira in a month, I have been working for nine years in this
578 “Tekstil Sanayinde Tatbik Edilen Bedo Sistemi ve Çesitli Mahzurları,” Gece Postası, 20 April 1954.
579 Kemal Sülker, “Yenen Mensucat Sanayii Đsçilerinin Derdi Çok,” Gece Postası, 9 August 1952; “Yemen
Mensucat Sanayii Đsçilerinin Sikayetleri Var,” Gece Postası, 9 January 1952. For another example of “rate
busting”, see Hayati Hançerlioğlu, “Bakırköy Fabrikasında,” Đstanbul Ekspres, 26 January 1952.
Historical experiences reveal that firms appear to be unable to abstain from rate cutting principally because of
competition. Once a new technology was introduced in a new firm, other firms would follow the innovating
firm. These firms could always undercut the innovating firm by starting up a new operation, teaching the new
techniques and setting a lower piece rate. Even if individual firms and workers wish to protect piece rates, the
forces of competition overwhelm them. See Huberman, p. 395.
580 Kemal Sülker, “Defterdar Mensucat Đsçileri Hayat Pahalılığından Sikayetçi,” Gece Postası, 11 February
1951; “Sümerbank Defterdar Đsçilerinin Ücretleri,” Gece Postası, 11 January 1957; Đstanbul Tekstil ve Örme
Sanayii Đsçileri Sendikası, 1959-1961 Devresi Faaliyet Raporu (Đstanbul: Alpaslan Matbaası, 1961), pp. 46-59.
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plant. Ask me, how I make my living, how I earn this money. To make up this 200 liras, I do
not take a pause for going to the toilet. Life is very hard. Defterdar has lost its taste.” 581
Another “first class” weaver said that he earned less because of frequent stops in the
weaving department. However, Defterdar weavers lacked the powerful instruments to claim a
wage increase. Workers were divided along party attachments or affiliations.582 Furthermore
the strongest trade union of Đstanbul, the Đstanbul Textile and Weaving Industry Workers
Trade Union, represented only a minority of workers in Defterdar. The Technical Textile
Workers Trade Union, which was established in 1955 as a second union in Defterdar,
recruited most of the members of this union. However, none of the unions could gain the
majority in the workplace which was required to raise collective labor conflicts.
Consequently, Defterdar workers could not get a rise after 1953 and the wage and premium
scales in the factory deteriorated until 1959.583
In the absence of the right to strike or government sanctioned negotiations, the fight
against the Bedaux system in Santral Mensucat proceeded through grievance meetings,
unofficial attempts to bargain with government, and shop floor activity. The workers held a
mass meeting on May 25, 1954. The strong participation evidenced the vitality of workers’
cohesion in the workplace and their fear of further work degradation. The participants
581 “200 lira alıyorum ayda, 9 senelik isçiyim. Nasıl geçiniyorum ve bu ücreti nasıl alıyorum, benden sor. 200
lirayı tutturabilmek için helaya gitmiyorum. Geçim çok güçlesti. Defterdar fabrikasının tadı kaçtı.” See
“Defterdar Mensucat Fabrikaları Đsçileri Çok Dertli,” Gece Postası, 7 January 1956.
582 Kemal Sülker, “Defterdar Mensucat’ta Birçok Hasta Đsçi Doktora Gidemiyor,” Gece Postası, 12 February
1951.
583 Đstanbul Teknik Mensucat Đsçileri Sendikası 1955-1956 Devresi Faaliyet Raporu (Đstanbul: 1956), pp. 2-5;
“Sümerbank Defterdar Đsçisinin Ücretleri,” Gece Postası, 11 January 1957; “Defterdar Đsçisinin Son Yıllardaki
Kayıpları”, Gece Postası, 30 April 1957. Unfair distribution of premiums was another source of complaints in
Sümerbank Facrories. Some workers like Mustafa Kalaycıgil from Sümerbank Kayseri Textile Factory
expressed their disappointment with the wage system in verses: “Đstihsal yüksekte, satıs yerinde/ Yine zavallıyız,
yara derinde/ Derdimiz söylenir dillerde dilde/ Adalet derdi var, derdim primde”. Mustafa Kalaycıgil, “Derdim
Primde,” Gayret, 9 June 1951.
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complained that the actions and efforts of the union directors proved to be inefficient to deal
with the situation in Santral Mensucat and decided that three more workers would be added to
the four Santral Mensucat workers who took office in the Đstanbul Weaving and Textile
Workers Union board of directors. Thus Santral Mensucat would have seven of the twenty
directors of the union. Moreover, the participants decided on the presentation of a petition to
the factory management demanding the removal of the speeding-up program and a general
increase in wages.
The immediate response of the employer to this petition was the firing of seven
workers who had been elected to the union board of directors. On the following day, when
workers were informed about this decision, 23 weavers stopped the machines at the beginning
of the night shift, at four p.m. Others, voluntarily or not, followed them. The employer called
the police, announcing that the workers’ move was an illegal act of strike. When the friction
between workers on one side and management and the police on the other took the form of
physical violence, the union directors intervened and started the negotiations with Bezmen
brothers in order to finish this de facto work stoppage.584 The resistance in the mill lasted
three days, when finally, on April 29, the union gained a significant concession. According to
the protocol signed by Fuat Bezmen on the part of employers and Bahir Ersoy on the part of
the authorized trade union, the seven unionist workers would be taken back to work and the
number of machines tended by any worker would not be more than ten. Thus, the unionists
584 “Kazlıçesme’de 1000 Đsçi Greve Tesebbüs Etti”, Milliyet, 27 April 1954; “Mensucat Santral Đsçilerinin
Grevini Sendika Önledi”, Gece Postası, 27 April 1954. It is interesting to note that there was a disagreement
between newspapers about whether the case in Santral Mensucat could be identified as a strike or a lockout. See
“Mensucat Fabrikasındaki Lokavt Hadisesi”, Aksam, 28 April 1954.
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believed, a moderate pace of work would be restored in the mill and wage cuts would be
prevented.585
However, the course of the events revealed that the early optimism of unionists was
simply naïve. By June 1954, the speed-up program was still in practice and workers were still
tending as many as 24 machines. Moreover, workers saw that the wage system had become
more unfair after the introduction of the speed-up program. According to workers, it had
become “so bizarre that while one weaver, Ali, who tends eight looms received 803 kurus,
another weaver, Ayhan who tends 24 looms earned 603 kurus.”586 On June 7, almost
spontaneously, that is to say, without factory-wide preparatory meetings to organize action,
weavers stopped a certain number of the machines which they thought running them went
beyond their physical endurance. Those weavers who had been operating 24 looms stopped
12 of the looms; and all other weavers stopped half of the looms for which they were
responsible.587 By this act, the workers also pointed out their perception of fair and reasonable
work load and pace.
The management’s reaction to workers’ action was much harder this time. When the
grievance committee met with the factory management, it was clear that both parties regarded
the locus of power to determine work pace as the central point of contention. In the meeting,
the factory management made it clear that it would not make any compromise about the
speeding up program to which the employers had invested much hope to improve the
competitiveness of the firm. After a short discussion with the representatives of weavers who
refused to run the machines, Fuat Bezmen invited the Regional Labor Director Bedii
585 Avni Erakalın, interview with author, tape recording, Aksaray, Đstanbul, 20 May 2010; “Santral Mensucat
Fabrikasında Đhtilaf”, Aksam, 24 June 1954.
586 “Mensucat Santral Đhtilafı Had Safhada,” Gece Postası, 17 June 1954.
587 “Santral Mensucat Fabrikasında Đhtilaf,” Aksam, 16 June 1954.
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Süngültay to the factory on the eighth day of the weavers’ resistance. The management’s
claim was that the weavers had initiated another strike action after two months.
According to press reports, Süngültay’s meeting with workers on June 15 took place in
a stretched atmosphere. He did not listen to workers’ grievances, but instead threatened that if
they did not get back to work, he would start legal proceedings against the weavers on a
charge of going on strike. The employer, who took courage from the attitude of the regional
labor director, invited police in the factory and announced that the labor contracts of 87
weavers who stopped the work were terminated and these weavers should leave the workplace
immediately. Upon that, workers appealed to the trade union claiming that the employer’s act
was a lockout. They also demanded from the ministry of labor arbitrate the conflict and
argued that the employer violated the labor law in many ways including the employment of
little children in very hard works.588 On the very next day, the employer sent a press release to
newspapers declaring that there had been no labor dispute raised by workers in the workplace
and the factory management were on good terms with the workers in general. Among almost
1200 workers employed in the mill, wrote the press release, only 87 weavers, who were not
willing to comply with the workplace rules, were creating the trouble.589
That labor and management were confronting each other for the first time as organized
social forces also contributed to the intensity of the struggle. Union leaders Celal Beyaz and
Avni Erakalın accompanied the workers to every negotiation with the employer and labor
directorate. The Đstanbul Textile and Weaving Industry Worers Union made continuous calls
for urgent common action to other trade unions. The Đstanbul Trade Unions Alliance made
recurrent attempts to attract the support of Đstanbul deputies of working class origin and to the
588 “Santral Mensucat Fabrikasında Đhtilaf,” Aksam, 16 June 1954; “Santral Mensucat 100 isçi Daha Çıkardı,”
Gece Postası, 16 June 1954.
589 “Santral Mensucatta Đhtilaf Yok,” Aksam, 17 June 1954.
216
intervention of Ankara.590 On the other hand, other textile employers in Đstanbul declared their
support of the Bezmen brothers and, according to the claim of the Đstanbul Textile and
Weaving Industry Workers Trade Union chairman Bahir Ersoy, they were instigating the
Bezmens to use every means possible to break the resistance of workers.591 Moreover, the
Bezmen family had established relations with the ruling party through their uncle Nazım
Bezmen, who was newly elected as a Đstanbul deputy from the DP. According to unionists,
Bezmens used this political link successfully to manipulate the police force and the Ministry
of Labor against the weavers. For more than a week the factory gates were blockaded by the
police against the union leaders as well as the weavers who were laid-off. In the meantime the
managers in the firm forced the workers to resign from the union if they did not want to lose
their jobs.592 This move of the management showed that the employers still were not ready to
recognize the union as an actor in labor negotiations.
The anti-Bedaux struggle forged class solidarity among workers. Only a few days after
the termination of employment contracts of 87 weavers, workers from many different
industries launched a fund raising campaign for these brave and determined weavers. Workers
in Bakırköy and Eyüp districts announced instantaneously that they would donate their daily
wages for once for the brave workers of Santral Mensucat.593 This was a very meaningful
campaign because in the absence of strike funds (trade unions were still so weak that they
590 Đstanbul Đsçi Sendikaları Birliği 1954-1956 Devresi Faaliyet Raporu (Đstanbul: Rıza Koskun Matbaası, 1956),
p. 40. In 1954 elections two workers were elected from the DP list in Đstanbul. They were Naci Kurt and Ahmet
Topçu. See “Parti Listelerinde Yer Alan Đsçi Adaylar ve Aldıkları Oylar,” Gece Postası, 6 May 1954.
591 Kemal Sülker, “Mensucat Santral Hadisesi Đle Đlgili Mütalealar,” Gece Postası, 13 July 1954.
592 “Đsçileri Sendikadan Çıkarmak Đçin Baskı Yapılıyor,” Gece Postası, 20 June 1954.
593 “Mensucat Santral Đhtilafı,” Aksam, 23 June 1954; “Đsçilerin Đse Alınması Cereyanı Kuvvetlendi,” Gece
Postası, 23 June 1954.
217
could not financially help their members in such times), strikes required a very strong sense of
solidarity among the workers.
The solidarity campaign with Santral Mensucat weavers was a unique example in this
sense during the period. The campaign became so successful that after almost a month later
the Đstanbul Trade Unions Alliance decided to support this campaign.594 In August the
campaign was more successful. 595 At the end of the month, a substantial amount of money
was collected in the fund. Some unions, including the Bottle and Glass Workers Trade Union,
the Ministry of National Security Workers Trade Union and Maden-Đs, promised to grant
more money.596
In the meantime an unexpected, but very valuable support to the resistance came from
the National Youth Committee of Turkey (Türkiye Milli Gençlik Teskilatı, TMGT). In its 1954
congress, the Committee accepted a resolution on the situation in Santral Mensucat. The
resolution adopted that the movement in Santral Mensucat was the cause of youth and
homeland as much as the cause of labor. “The Turkish youth,” the resolution wrote, “supports
the workers, for the compensation system applied in the mill exhausts physically and
emotionally both the workers and the young.” 597
The workers were already using such a discourse in order to attract the attention of a
wider public on the issue. In an earlier press release and in the application document to the
Regional Labor Directorate workers reported that the worst feature of the labor process in the
594 “Sendikalar Birliğinde Mensucat Santral Đhtilafı Görüsüldü,” Gece Postası, 20 July 1954.
595 “Đsten Atılan Đsçilere Teberru Yarısı Basladı,” Gece Postası, 2 August 1954.
596 “Đsten Çıkartılan Mensucat Đsçilerine Teberrüler,” Gece Postası, 31 August 1954.
597 Avni Erakalın was invited to the congress as the representative of the Federation of Textile Workers Trade
Unions (TEKSĐF) where he made a speech on the working conditions in general and the situation in Santral
Mensucat in particular. See “Milli Gençlik Teskilatı Yıllık Kongresi Dün Yapıldı,” Milliyet, 18 July 1954; “Milli
Gençlik Komitesi Bir Tebliğ Nesrediyor: Bedo Sistemi Protesto Edilecek,” Gece Postası, 17 July 1954; Kemal
Sülker, “Đki Beyanname ve Bir Protesto,” Gece Postası, 27 July 1954.
218
factory wass that “young people as early as 14 are employed in these shops. By making them
tend 24 looms at once, the employer is responsible for the weakening bodies and deteriorating
the physical health of the young generations.”598 With that support from the prestigious
Kemalist youth organization, the workers justified their resistance by combining their
interpretation of Kemalist purpose of protecting the health and improving the bodies of rising
generations with their sense of proper workplace ethics.599
However, against all public pressure to revise its decision and settle for a compromise,
the Santral Mensucat management was very decisive to continue the speeding up program and
smash up any resistance to it. Furthermore the trade union delegation which visited the
Minister of Labor, Hayrettin Erkmen, in Ankara to ask for his intervention returned emptyhanded
by his unsympathetic response.600 Having seen that the counter offensive of the
factory management was growing beyond the limits that can be confronted by a single union,
the textile workers trade union decided to submit the issue to the Alliance of Đstanbul Trade
Unions in the early July. The intention of the union was to convince the Alliance to issue a
declaration that condemned the employer vigorously for his hostility towards the union and to
organize a mass meeting with other unions in Đstanbul.601 However, the internal balance of
powers within the Alliance was very complex in the early 1950s. In effect it had been locked
598 “Mensucat Santral Đhtilafı: Çalısma Vekilinin Hakemliği Đsteniyor,” Gece Postası, 18 July 1954.
599 It is worth noting that the relationship between National Youth Organization of Turkey and trade unions
became much closer after 1954. In 1955 TEKSĐF became a member of the TMGT and attended many national
and international meetings with this organization. In September 1956, TMGT prepared a “commission report on
the problems of young workers” where the foremost demands were reported as the restriction of the working
week to 40 hours for young workers and the recognition of the right to strike for the working people as a whole.
See TEKSĐF III. Kongre 9.8.1953 – 3.9.1958 Dönemi Raporları, pp. 67-69; 125-128.
600 “Santral Mensucat Fabrikasında Çalısan Đsçilerin Durumu,” Milliyet, 6 July 1954. It is noteworthy that it was
a routine practice for trade unions who sought to settle disputes to send delegations of workers to Ankara to talk
personally to the minister of labor or other authorities in the ministry. Sometimes such appeals served the
purpose. But many times they fell on deaf ears, and some unionists in time learned how to organize themselves
more effectively to advance their interests.
601 “Mensucat Santral Đhtilafı Yeni Bir Safhaya Girdi,” Gece Postası, 6 July 1954.
219
into impotence for a long time by the ongoing rivalry between pro-DP and pro-RPP unionists,
and the dominant current in the Alliance did not want to engage in an open confrontation with
the big capital.602
In the first meeting of the board of directors it became clear that the resistance would
be deluded with false promises of compromise. Seyfi Demirsoy, who was at the head of the
Alliance, believed that the problem in Santral Mensucat could be solved for most of the
workers except four or five weavers who were considered to be real troublemakers by the
employer. He proposed the formation of a dispute settlement commission with the
participation of respectable experts and public officers. Seemingly more radical union leaders
in the Alliance, such as Yusuf Sidal, appealed that such an act would not have any benefit, but
reveal the weakness of the labor organization. Sidal proposed to make a strong declaration
showing the unity of unions and charging the employer for the injustices made against
weavers.603 But union leaders continued to insist that the interests of the two sides (labor and
capital) were fundamentally in harmony, and that they sought to resolve such disputes by
dealing personally to employers.
After a long debate, trade union leaders agreed on the establishment of a commission
formed by Bedii Süngütay (Regional Labor Director), Prof. Ferit Hakkı Saymen (Đstanbul
University), a representative from the Alliance of National Solidarity (a society established in
1953 by middle-class intellectuals for fighting against extreme currents), Seyfi Demirsoy and
602 A later debate which took place in the pages of Gece Postası targeted this group of trade unionist. The debate
was triggered by the statements of some unionists which belamed others as the “labor aristocracy” described as
forming a certain distinctive strata of the working class who are beter paid, better treated and generally regarded
as more “respectable” and politically compliant and docile than the mass of the working people. The labor
aristocracy who filled the top ranks of trade unions were accused of turning their back to the needs and problems
of the working class. See Kemal Sülker, “Aristokratlasan Đsçiler Hakkında Çesitli Görüsler,” Gece Postası, 23
January 1957.
603 “Mensucat Santral Hadisesi Đle Đlgili Görüsler ve Teklifler,” Gece Postası, 13 July 1954.
220
Mahmut Yüksel (trade unionist).604 Now both workers and union leaders pinned their hopes
on the functioning of this commission. However, Sidal’s warnings proved to be true when
nothing seemed to happen and no explanation was ever made by the commission. Protracted
meetings behind the doors sapped all the energy and power of the workers’ resistance. There
was a widespread conviction in the concerned public that the Alliance was intentionally
wasting the time of workers.605 The textile workers union wrote a sharp letter to the Alliance
accusing it of being negligent and showing insufficient attention to the situation in Mensucat
Santral.606 Some workers even claimed that the commission and the Alliance had been bribed
by the employer.607
Consequently, despite the protracted struggle, the workers did not succeed to get back
to work, let alone to remove the Bedaux system. Moreover, according to a newspaper record
dismissed weavers could not find new jobs in other textile mills because they had been
blacklisted by the manufacturers.608 By the early September, Santral Mensucat file was closed
for most of the unionists.
The defeat of the weavers can be explained by a number of factors. The labor process
and market forces do not wholly determine the power and form of workers’ struggle; we must
also consider the degree of unity among the workers and other features of workplace relations
between the employer and workers. First, the case in Santral Mensucat shows that the work
experience on the shop floor promoted both a sense of collective identity and, at the same
604 “Birlik Yönetim Kurulunda Geçen Dikkate Değer Mütalealar,” Gece Postası, 14 July 1954.
605 See “Santral Fabrikası Đhtilafı Devam Ediyor,” Milliyet, 19 July 1954.
606 “Tekstil Sendikasının Sikayeti,” Đsçi Sesi, 24 July 1954
607 Kemal Sülker, “Đki Beyanname ve Bir Protesto,” Gece Postası, 27 July 1954. The Alliance would later deny
such allegations. See Kemal Sülker, “Mensucat Santral Hadisesi Karsısında Sendikalar Birliği,” Gece Postası, 26
August 1954.
608 “Mensucat Santral’den Çıkarılanlar Simdi Hiçbir Đs Yerine Alınmıyorlar,” Đstanbul Ekspres, 27 July 1954.
221
time, a corresponding sense of individualism. The transformation of the firm in the 1940s and
early 1950s had a decisive impact on the size, character, the technology, the modes of
organization, and the outlook of the workers. As the workers became more sharply delineated
as a specific social group with a particular role in the production process, they began to see
themselves and to be seen by others in a new light. The strong representation of the Santral
Mensucat workers in the trade union board of directors gained in early 1954 marks the
existence of class identity among these workers. On the other hand, weavers who were
primarily affected by the Bedaux system constituted only a small proportion of workers in the
mill. The spinning section workers and auxiliary workers who made up the majority in the
mill were still paid at time rates. These workers participated in the anti-Bedaux struggle only
for a short time. The sexual division of labor within the textile industry probably played a
crucial part in determining the intensiy as well as failure of the industrial struggle in Santral
Mensucat.
Secondly, like most manufacturing firms during the period, Santral Mensucat was a
family firm, whose owners played an active role in the management. In these circumstances it
was possible for employers to maintain something of a personal relationship with their
employees. Fuad Bezmen always endeavored to be physically close to his employees. He was
present in the mill frequently enough to observe most of the workers. He tried to show a
personal concern for their private and family lives and assisted them financially when
necessary. He used to spend lunch breaks with the workers and even associated with some of
them after work hours. The social welfare department of the factory provided cloth support
for workers and their families twice a year. Even remuneration sometimes was determined by
non-work factors. Personal problems, extra family expenses or the marriage of a worker were
sometimes more important factors in receiving promotion than productivity and “job
222
evaluation.”609 These occasions probably provided an exchange of employer’s benevolence
with workers’ loyalty and helped to smooth the workplace culture, which worked counter to
the inflexible formality of scientific management.
Despite the apparent failure of the weavers’ struggle, it may have helped to prevent the
use of the Bedaux methods in other departments of the mill. However, the informal strike
changed the lives of workers in a significant way. The direct action by the weavers spurred
the Santral Mensucat employer, sensitive to public relations and probably anxious to avoid the
repetition of such struggles in the mill. After weathering the crisis in 1954, Bezmens engaged
more heavily in paternalistic practices in an effort to exert authority. 610
In the 1950s paternalism and deference appeared as important features of employment
relations, relative to more recent periods. Many employers relied on paternalism and
benevolent conduct in increasing productivity and worker loyalty. For instance the employer
of the Vakko cotton printing mill organized entertainment activities to build company loyalty
and decrease oppositional class politics. One of these occasions, for example, took place in
the midst of wage negotiations between the employer and the authorized trade union in mid-
1956. The employer organized an entertainment in one of the most popular music halls and
the following day the workers withdrew their signatures from the application document
prepared for raising collective labor dispute. The frustration of the trade union was expressed
in the activity report of the board of directors in 1957 as follows:
The fact that the banquet organized by the employer in the Maçka Sark Night Club
during which a lot of alcohol was consumed also played a part in the change of mind
609 Nurten Erk Tosuner, “80 Yıllık Sanayici Fuad Bezmen 100 Yasına ‘Tertemiz’ Giriyor,” Hürriyet, 27 April
2009; “Bezmen Đsçilerle Yiyor,” Gece Postası, 9 January 1958; “Đsçilerin Yediği Yemeği Tercih Eden Adam,”
Gece Postası, 9 January 1959.
610 Historical accounts reveal that paternalism become more practical in workplaces in which managerial claims
of labor control are confronted with workers’ resistence. See Irene Padavic and William R. Earnest, “Paternalism
as a Component of Managerial Strategy”, The Social Science Journal, vol. 31, no. 4 (1994).
223
of the workers multiply our despair. The fact that the employer achieved to save
himself from the pay raise by spending a small sum to buy champagne for the
workers must be a concern for us. Our members who were drunk that night must
sober up when they realize that they did not get any pay raise since then and the
delay in the payments of the minimum wage differences.611
Such paternalist policies intended to harmonize relations between workers and
management and act as a balm to class conflict. For some other employers paternalist
programs sought to decrease turnover rates and encourage workers in habits associated with
middle class respectability.
It is hard to employ workers, that is, to say to make them work in the most efficient
way and with a sincere commitment to the company, especially in this era. No
worker can commit himself to his job unless he loves his boss like a father and feels
that his boss treats him like a son… In order to make a worker reach maximum
efficiency one must make him love his chore and from time to time one must
appreciate and congratulate him.612
However, most paternalism was personally exercised and never cohered to a
hegemonic culture. A few larger manufacturers sought to create paternalistic regimes by acts
of informal benevolence including ambitious provisions of health service and sponsoring
social activities. Fuad Bezmen was maybe the most preeminent industrialist to provide a
paternalist workplace environment in the 1950s:
611 “Đsçilerin bu dönüsü yapmalarında is verenin Maçka Sark gazinosunda verdiği içkili yemeğin de tesirinin
olması üzüntüyü bir kat daha arttıracak bir olaydır. Đsçiye vereceği zammın küçük bir kısmı ile sampanya
içirmesi ve mütebakisinden kurtulması bizlere bir dert olmalıdır. Đçki ile sarhos olan üyelerimizin o zamandan
beri zam almamıs olmaları, asgari ücret farklarını hak edememeleri, kendilerini uyandırmıs olsa gerekir.”
Đstanbul Tekstil ve Örme Sanayii Đsçileri Sendikası 1956-1957 Devresi Faaliyet Raporu (Đstanbul: Sulhi Garan
Matbaası, 1957), p. 17.
612 “Hele bu zamanda isçi kullanmak, yani isçiyi müesseseye candan bağlı ve en verimli bir sekilde çalıstırmak
kolay is değildir. Đsçi patronunu bir baba gibi sevmez ve patronun kendisine evlat gözüyle baktığını sezmezse,
mümkün değil kendini layıkıyla isine veremez… Azami randıman almak için isçiye isini sevdirmek ve daima
olmasa dahi muvaffakiyetinden dolayı takdir ve tebrik etmek lazımdır.” See “Hayatta Muvaffak olmus
Đsadamlarımız-50’lerden Sanayici Portreleri” in 75 Yılda Çarkları Döndürenler (Đstanbul: Tarih Vakfı Yayınları,
1999). Quoted in Koçak, “Türkiye Đsçi Sınıfı Olusumunun Sessiz Yılları: 1950’ler”, p. 112.
224
They called me ‘father Fuad’ in the mill. I started giving lunch to workers for the first
time in private mills. Because one day I was told that one of my best workers did not
come to work. They said he was ill. I sent a doctor to his home. I wanted to guarantee
that they eat healthily and keep proper diet. I always ate with them. I provided interest
free loans for those who wanted to buy apartments. The first collective agreement was
made in my factory. I made it available to workers to go for vacation at the
recreational facilities of my company in Üsküdar. We were content with each other.
We were earning money, giving workers’ share.613
Especially the recreational facilities established in Üsküdar-Pasalimanı were
appreciated by many contemporaries. Even the Gayret magazine which was published by
Textile Industry Workers’ Trade Union in Kayseri praised Bezmen for his benevolence and
humanitarian behavior toward his workers.614 In 1958, upon the invitation of social welfare
director of the Santral Mensucat, Kemal Sülker visited the camp during the special camp
festival which was held once in a year. Sülker seemed to be fascinated by the extent of the
social services provided and the orderly, clean environment of the camp. The shelters were
new and comfortable; the beds and sheets were clean and were comparable to those in middle
class houses. There were beautiful playgrounds for children and Turkish classical music
concerts which took place at the music hall entertained adults in the evenings. The statue of
Halil Ali Bezmen, the founder of Santral Mensucat, gave the impression that he was present
among them, watching proudly his respectable, deserving workers enjoying their decent
613 “Fabrikada bana “Fuad Baba” derlerdi. Đsçilerine Đlk yemeği veren benim. Çünkü en iyi isçilerimden birinin
birgün gelmediğini öğrendim, hasta dediler. Evine doktoru gönderdim. Sonra her hasta olanın evine doktoru
gönderdim. Düzenli beslenmelerini ve ihtiyaçları olan kaloriyi almalarını istedim. Her zaman isçilerimle aynı
yemeği yedim. Đlk toplu sözlesme benim fabrikamda imzalandı. Ev almak isteyen isçilerime faizsiz para verdim.
Üsküdar’daki sirket tesislerimde 15 gün tatil yaptırdım. Ben de memnundum, isçilerim de. Para kazanıyorduk.
Đsçilerimizin hakkını da veriyorduk.” Nurten Erk Tosuner, “80 Yıllık Sanayici Fuad Bezmen 100 Yasına
‘Tertemiz’ Giriyor,” Hürriyet, 27 April 2009.
614 Kemal Yılmaz, “Örnek Đsveren,” Gayret, no. 113 (20 August 1953).
225
holiday.615 Workers’ contentment and satisfaction with the camp was reflected in a poetry
performed by a worker:
It is Monday, we arrived at our camp
Let us say Maasallah to our new complex
May God make it permanent to us
Thanks to master Hakkı, his labor is memorable
Long live our factory
We are protected and supported 616
These policies had tangible benefits to workers. However, it should be remembered
that elements of both paternalism and “market despotism”617 were present at all levels of the
employment relationship in Santral Mensucat. They were added to other features of the
industrial culture, embodying the outcomes of conflicts in the first half of the decade.
Workers furthermore sought to press on management new institutional forms for the
regulation of industrial relations: they called for an organized representation of their interests
through the trade unions; they sought the right to strike, and the removal of the unjustified
Bedaux system. Yet, when the company decided in 1954 to extend management control by
crushing the weaving shop and by introducing scientific management techniques, workers
could not stand against this grand campaign, despite a protracted struggle. The company had
made a sizeable investment in infrastructural modernization and clearly intended to end the
615 “Fabrika yaz kıs bütün isçilerini onar gün kampta dinlendirmektedir. Đsçiler çalısıyormus gibi ücret ve
primlerini alıyorlar. Beton pavyonlar – bizzat müsahede ettim – tertemiz. Karyolalar yepyeni. Yatak yogan orta
halli bir aileninkiler ayarında. Kamp çamlar arasında boğaza Boğaza hakim bir yerde. Đsçiler arasında en ufak bir
gürültü, anlasmazlık, huzursuzluk yok… Kampa, kimsesiz çocuklar yurdunda barındırılan 22 çocuk onar gün
araya ikiser ikiser misafir ediliyorlar… Öte yanda mensucat sahiplerinin büyükleri Halil Ali Bezmen’in büstü
duruyordu. Sanki muvaffak bir eseri gururla seyrediyor gibiydi.” Kemal Sülker, “Đsçi Dinlenme Kampı ve Sosyal
Yardım Faaliyeti,” Gece Postası, 11 July 1956. See also “Pasalimanında Pasalar gibi Eğlenen Đsçiler,” 13 April
1956.
616 “Günlerden Pazartesi biz geldik kampımıza/ Maasallah diyelim biz bu yeni yapımıza/ Hüda daim eylesin onu
hep yanımıza/ Hakkı usta sağolsun emeği unutulmaz/ Yasasın Fabrikamız/ Sağlamdır Arkamız”; Ibid.
617 For the term, see Burawoy, Politics of Production, ch. 2.
226
relative autonomy of the weavers in the production process. The Bedaux system offered an
opportunity to break the workers’ control of their jobs and to entrench a group of obedient
productive workers. It is reasonable to argue that despite the reality that these workers
represented ultimately little threat to employer, the management intrinsically viewed worker
autonomy as potentially threatening both to its own control of the labor process and, in the
end, to capital’s control generally. In Santral Mensucat, as elsewhere, management
determined to end that threat, and they did it successfully.
Conclusion
The scientific management system introduced in the early 1950s in a few large firms
affected very few people directly; for example, hardly more than ten percent of workers
worked at piece rate compensation schemes.618 But it was merely the most visible part of a
multifaceted reorganization of the firm in social, technical and financial terms. The new
industrial framework attempted to achieve an arrangement of the workplace allowing for a
smoother flow of products, a more logical sequencing of operations to avoid loss of time, and
technological modernization. However, as noted above, technological modernization in a
factory meant a better-controlled factory. This reorganization of workplace was accompanied
by the development of a wage system more suited to the regulation of time and productivity.
Wage policy was crucial to instill in workers a greater sense of time discipline.
Control issues were reflected in worker attempts to influence the pace of work by
demanding the restoration of daily pay, by contesting any requirement that the workers
operate more machine tools at a time, by contesting overtime, and by challenging
618 See Sabahaddin Zaim, Bölge ve Sehir Planlaması Yönünden Đstanbul Sanayi Bölgeleri (Đstanbul: Đstanbul
Üniversitesi Đktisat Fakültesi Yayını, 1971), pp. 296-299.
227
management generally over the issue of time by seeking a reduction in hours. For
management, the problem turned on gaining control over labor productivity, and in part, the
employers sought to do so by manipulating forms of remuneration. Both the managements in
state factories and private factories hoped to achieve a more disciplined and productive work
force through such capitalist incentives to hard work as monetary inducement. But in so
doing, the management encroached upon what labor viewed as humane pace of work.
Workers were well aware that piece rates constituted a real challenge to themselves.
When stripped off of its “scientific” veil, it attempted to remove the decisions over work pace
and sequence from the bargaining between foremen and workers - bargaining in which
workers participated and exercised some power. In order to impose the new scientific
standards, management had to break the workers’ power to resist. On the other hand welfare
capitalism attempted to convince workers that harmony, not conflict, would bring rewards to
workers. The intensification of work and tighter discipline coincided with the celebrated rise
in living standards of working class families and increased legislative reform during the
period. In many workpalces such as Santral Mensucat mill paternalism and deference also
played an important role in establishing factory discipline and gaining workers’ loyalty to the
workplace.
Managerial programs that imposed centralized expertise on workers are the essence of
Taylorism, but Taylorism came to be implemented in a very decentralized manner in Turkey
during the 1950s. The decentralized character of the system is embodied by piece rate
compensation programs typically led by foreign experts, as was the case in Santral Mesucat.
The decentralized aspects of Turkish labor-management relations were a response to Turkey’s
status as a late developer and the fragmented character of labor markets.
228
CHAPTER 4
LAW, LABOR PROCESS AND WORKING CLASS EXPERIENCE
Over the course of the 1940s and 1950s many employers such as the textile
manufacturers tackled the problem of subordination of labor. In the previous chapter, some of
the managerial strategies and methods that were employed at the shop floor level in order to
overcome the problems of governance in the capitalist labor process were scrutinized. It was
argued that experiments with such strategies in some workplaces shaped working class
experience and action in some unprecedented ways. In order to complement the picture, we
should add to this analysis another perspective which focuses on the role of law in facilitating
and securing productive discipline.
This perspective is chiefly inspired by the contemporary studies on the anthropology of
law which has grown since at least the late 1970s. The contemporary anthropology of law has
put special attention to the ways that law constructs and deconstructs power relations. As
Sally E. Merry suggests in a wonderful review on the literature, “law is no longer only a mode
of social control and dominance; it is also a constitutive system that creates conceptions of
229
order and enforces on them.”619 The constitutive theory of law attempts to understand the
ways in which law forms identity and experience and, in turn, is constituted by the everyday
interactions that give law a meaning.620 Moreover, law as an ideology contributes to the
social construction of the world as fair and just and at the same time provides a language for
resisting that order.
Another inspiration to this perspective comes from Michael Burawoy’s argument that
the problem of subordination involves not just the labor process per se, but the larger political
apparatuses of production in which it is nested. That is to say, production is socially and
politically organized, and law plays central role in this process. According to that argument,
contrary to the labor theorists who have often depoliticized production, “political process
always operates at the very center of the labor process by defining the juridical actor, both
individual and collective.”621 Through the law, private and state actors (in our case,
inspectors, Ministry of Labor officers and managers) intercede in the apparatuses and
processes of production.
In two related aspects, the law was crucial to overcome the problems of governance in
the capitalist labor process. First, it performed a coercive function by imposing direct legal
sanctions against workers who exercised their collective economic strength on employers.
Second, it was used as to legitimize, but also to regulate and reform, the indigenous
production and enforcement of norms in the workplace. Without the legal environment
619 Sally Engle Merry, “Anthropology, Law, and Transnational Processes,” Annual Review of Anthropology 21
(1992), p. 360.
620 See Carroll Seron and Frank Munger, “Law and Inequality: Race, Gender … and, of Course Class,” Annual
Review of Sociology 22 (1996), pp. 195-196.
621 Burawoy, The Politics of Production, p. 63.
230
created by various state and non-state legislation, the program of industrial discipline could
not have been conducted effectively.
Recently, this perspective has been elaborated by Marc W. Steinberg, who emphasizes
that state has never been “external” to the production process and concentrating on law as
playing role at the macro level of institutions often conceals the micro dimension of law as a
set of everyday practices.622 Steinberg suggests that we should focus attention to how legal
institutions partly constitute both the ways in which the labor relation can be conceived and
the strategies by which capitalists can subordinate workers. He argues that the historical
materialist accounts of the labor process and history provide a satisfactory analysis of the
transformation of social and technical relations of production with the advent of modern
industry and the rise of machinery, yet, in general, “fail to evaluate the ways in which law is
used as a means of domination within the production process to insure value extraction.” 623
Following Steinberg, we may conclude that a socio-legal dimension should be added to the
theory for attaining a better understanding of the experience of exploitation in the labor
process. The relevance of law for the history of the labor process also is emphasized by
Richard Price in a relatively old but not out of date article in which he argues that a social
history of labor law can detect deeper continuities in law and its relation to statutes through
the period of capitalist development.624
From this point of view, this chapter seeks an analysis of the role of law in the
historical construction of production process. Asserting that law is the primary site upon
622 Marc W. Steinberg, “Capitalist Development, the Labor Process, and the Law,” American Journal of
Sociology, vol. 109, no. 2 (September 2003), p. 454.
623 Marc W. Steinberg, “Marx, Formal Subsumption and the Law,” Theory and Society, vol. 39, no. 2 (March,
2010).
624 Richard Price, “The Labour Process and Labour History,” Social History, vol. 8, no. 1 (January, 1983), p. 70.
231
which authoritative social relations are constituted, the chapter shall argue that legal history—
in this case the history of labor law—is of fundamental importance to the labor history.
However, the object of this chapter is not an anatomy of law. Nor does it aim at the diagnosis
of ills and the prescription of alternative possible reform programs. Its object rather is to
investigate law in terms of the social relations and, therefore, the power relations persisting in
the society. These are relations in which law is actively implicated both practically and
conceptually. Interpreting the social history of labor law in this light is of crucial importance
particularly for a study which focuses on a period when great steps were taken in terms of
legal structuring of labor relations. It has been well documented by the industrial relations
literature that the 1946-1963 period in Turkey is one that the legal infrastructure of workplace
labor relations was constituted.625
It is commonplace to acknowledge that there has been a close affinity between the
state and labor law. Yet labor law cannot and should not be confined to the set of norms
authoritatively pronounced by state institutions – the legislative and courts – and enforced by
state officials – judges, arbitration authorities, and inspectors – mandated to employ state’s
powers of coercion. Notwithstanding all assumptions of state policy and action, a great part of
the labor law is not exclusively state law. As H.W. Arthurs underlines: “The ‘web of rules’
governing the complex and dynamic relationship we call employment includes strands of state
law, to be sure, but also explicit contracts and implicit understandings, custom and usage,
patterned behavior, cultural assumptions, power relations, and technological imperatives. The
state alone – even if we wanted to – could neither replicate nor restrict the variety and
625 A democrat deputy underlined during a parliamentary debate in 1958 that the total number of legislations
concerning labor issues enacted during the last seven years of DP government came to 92. This number far
exceeded that of 1923-1950 period, which was just about 60. TBMM Tutanak Dergisi, term 11, session 1, vol. 4,
27 February 1958.
232
volatility, spontaneity and subtlety, power and precision of this web of rules”626 Therefore, the
following analysis also should incorporate the function of “private law of employers” in
constructing labor discipline in order to wring the most value from workers.
In this chapter we shall demonstrate this expanded perspective through an analysis of
three connected themes: i) the role of inner regulations as private law, ii) the performance of
labor inspectorate in monitoring and supporting the implementation of labor legislation, and
iii) the functioning of arbitration mechanism as the only legitimate channel of resolving
collective labor disputes. We shall explore how these three subjects constituted a power
relationship between employers and workers that provided the former with the potential for
considerable control. We shall also analyze how the social embeddedness of manufacturers
within the local elite provided them with access to and power to manipulate the legal system
as a means of labor control.
However, to be sure, workers were not just passive subjects of control through the
legal system. Obviously they had far less capacity to intervene in the codification and,
especially, interpretations of the laws. Yet, as Thompson observed of eighteenth century
English law, the very centrality of the law as a force of order and class power makes it an
arena, not of consensus, but of conflict. From within the legal system, for example, workers
aired their demands for the extension of social justice and equity. Over time, Thompson
noted, the law thus served at once as a powerful hegemonic force for the established class
power and as a brake on the self-interest of the ruling classes.627 Moreover, legal norms and
institutions gave way to unpredictable consequences in terms of working class consciousness.
626 H.W. Arthurs, “Labour Law without the State?” The University of Toronto Law Journal, vol. 46, no. 1
(Winter, 1996), pp. 2-3. See also Merry, p. 358.
627 E. P. Thompson, Whigs and Hunters: The Origin of the Black Act (London: Allen Lane, 1975), pp. 260-269.
233
The legislation system itself magnified the worker’s sense of himself as a worker rather than
as a citizen or the nation as a whole. It also points to the margins where the legitimate action
for workers starts and ends.
Inner Regulations
The significant role of factory inner regulations for subordinating labor has been a
neglected issue in the labor process literature. However, the first elaborations on the subject
date back to as early as Marx. Even he did not develop a broader perspective necessary for a
complementary analysis of the law in capitalist relations of production, Marx made some
references to the place of factory regulations in the development of capitalist labor process. In
Marx’s words:
In the factory code, the capitalist formulates his autocratic power over his workers
like a private legislator, and purely as an emanation of his own will, unaccompanied
by either that division of responsibility otherwise so much approved by the
bourgeoisie, or the still more approved representative system. This code is merely
the capitalist caricature of the social regulation of the labor process which becomes
necessary in co-operation on a large scale and in the employment of common
instruments of labour, and especially machinery. The overseer’s book of penalties
replaces the slave-driver’s lash. All punishments (in capitalist production relations)
naturally resolve themselves into fines and deductions from wages.628
Obviously Marx’s analysis of factory legislations was written to describe the “satanic
mills” of mid-nineteenth century England where the production process was controlled by the
factory owner in a more “despotic” manner behind the factory gates. However, the historical
account proves that inner regulations played an important role in every particular experience
of capitalist development. In the Turkish experience we can also see that inner regulations
were put into service for furnishing the employers with greater control and disciplinary power
over their workers. As Orhan Tuna wrote the inner regulations had the character to be
628 Marx, pp. 549-550.
234
“principal employment contract” between workers and employers. They rendered employers
discretionary power over the conditions of employment.629
The inner regulation guide was in practice a labor contract which included specific
rules in a work shop. According to the 1936 Labor Code (Article 29) all workplaces to which
the Code applied were obliged to prepare inner regulations (dahili talimatnameler) which set
the work safety, sanitary and disciplinary standards to which workers would be subjected. The
Code stipulated that inner regulations also should include conditions of employment, which
are usually determined by collective agreements, where the system of collective bargaining
exists. As early as 1937, one permanent industrial journal, Endüstri, warned that the
employers should not manipulate the inner regulations so as to circumvent the Labor Law and
impose heavy conditions on workers through these documents.630 The worry was that
employers were trying to put workers in a straightjacket and impose unfair tasks and
disciplinary punishments through these regulations.
The Labor Code also stipulated that the inner regulations be prepared by the workplace
managements and submitted for approval to the Regional Labor Directorates (before 1946,
this authority was the Ministry of Economy) before coming into effect in the workplaces.
However this did not necessarily change the employment of inner regulations as “private
629 “(M)evzuat Hükümlerinden de anlasılacağı gibi, iç yönetmelik tek taraflı bir tasarruftur ve mevzuat
hükümlerine aykırı olmamak sartiyle münhasıran isveren tarafından tanzim ve tadil edilmektedir. Haiz olduğu
bu hükümleriyle isçilerin, isyerlerinde yürürlükte bulunan istihdam sartlarının tespitinde hiçbir iradeleri, rey ve
fikirleri, hatta hiçbir arzu ve temennileri bahis konusu değildir. Baska bir ifade ile, bu rejime göre isveren tam
manasiyle “kendi evinin efendisi”dir. Bizzat tanzim ve değistirme yetkisine haiz olduğu iç yönetmeliğe dilediği
çalısma sartlarını koyar ve dilediğini çıkarabilir. Nitekim bahis konusu ettiğimiz tebliğlerde, Çalısma
Bakanlığınca iç yönetmeliklere derci zaruri görülen hususlar dısında, ‘isverenin ayrıca koymak istediği is
sartları varsa’ ibaresi bu görüsü teyit etmektedir. ” Orhan Tuna, Toplu Đs Sözlesmesi Düzeninin Đktisadi ve
Sosyal Tesirleri (Ankara: Devlet Planlama Teskilatı Yayınları, 1969), p. 21.
630 “Đs Yerleri için Dahili Talimatnameler Yapılırken Đsçiler Hakkında Vicdani ve Đnsani Duygular Daima Göz
Önünde Bulundurulmalıdır,” Endüstri, vol. 23, no. 3 (November 1937), p. 70.
235
legislations”631 by employers. Workers and trade unions frequently expressed their annoyance
and discomfort with the disciplinary punishments and other severe measures that were put in
inner regulations.
During the period, workers under factory discipline were dismissed, fined heavily or
locked out for the day for a whole variety of infractions. These included arriving a few
minutes late in the morning, entering the factory by using the door of officers, being absent
from their machine, cleaning or fixing machines by themselves, eating or talking to others
during the work and engaging in other forms of disorderly conduct. Even workers on
piecework were often subject to strict discipline. For example, in the Mensucat Santral and
Kartaltepe Mensucat mills, workers who were a few minutes late were locked out for the
day.632 Infact, expropriation of some minutes by starting late in the morning, by cleaning the
machines themselves or leaving the machine for a brief chat with friends were not generally
influenced by any intention of being resistant. However, their breaking with time schedules or
disciplinary regulations partly affected the factories’ work process and order. These
expropriations and withdrawals interfered with the managements’ efforts to devote the entire
operational time to production of commodities. The detailed factory inner regulations mirror
how far the workers’ silent transgressions were perceived as resistance and punished by the
managements.633
631 Bob Fine, “Law and Class,” in Capitalism and the Rule of Law: From Deviancy Theory to Marxism, edited by
B. Fine, R. Kinsey, J. Iea, S. Picciotto, and J. Young (London: Hutchinson, 1982), p. 44; Dipesh Chakrabarty,
Rethinking Working Class History: Bengal, 1890 to 1940 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2000), p. 68;
Steinberg, “Capitalist Development, Labor Process and the Law”, p. 447.
632 Mensucat Santral Türk Anonim Sirketi Đçyönetmeliği (Đstanbul: Hüsnütabiat Basımevi, 1950), p. 10; “235
Mensucat Đsçisi Đs Đhtilafı Çıkardı”, Gece Postası, 13 December 1950.
633 Such illegal breaks with the demands and requirements of the factory system were multifaceted situations.
Resistance could be practiced then. However, such small acts of reappropriation of time and space of one’s own
at work were especially important as it allowed an independent shopfloor culture to form. Alf Ludtke, thus,
contrasts forms of enjoyable timewasting at work with the entitled breaks which were theoretically “reproductive
236
In a cement factory established in Zeytinburnu, workers who were five minutes late in
the morning were fined one hour’s wage. Those who came to work more than one hour later
had to pay a fine of half day’s wage.634 In one factory if a worker was not there by starting
time, he lost his machine with the wage and bonus earnings for the day.635 Leaving the
machines for any reason while they were running and fixing or cleaning them during the work
time were also acts that entailed the punishment of workers. Inner regulations, therefore, were
designed on the one hand to destroy pre-industrial habits and moralities and on the other to
inculcate attitudes of punctuality and responsibility with work routines.636 In order to
guarantee strict punctuality, the inner regulation guides of the Mensucat Santral and General
Elektrik companies wrote that the factory clock was set according to the national time
announced on the radio.637
Discipline systems penalized workers for various other infractions. In a rope and
landyard producing factory established in Anadoluhisari (Anadoluhisar Đp ve Halat
work”, used practically for recharging one’s own strength for the following hours at the workbench. It is in the
illegal breaks (acts of walking around, talking, or even day dreaming) that workers demarcated a kind of
autonomous space and a niche of time for self-directed activity. In Ludtke’s words, “these were moments of
actively taking distance not only from capital’s domination at the workplace, but also from fighting or resisting
the restrictions of one’s own needs and interests – immediate joyful ‘depense’ (expenditure of time on the spot)
without any calculation of effects or outcomes. The workers then were with themselves by actively neglecting
the consequences of their social intercourse, at least for some minutes, or perhaps only seconds.” See Alf
Luedtke, “Cash, Coffee-Breaks, Horseplay: Eigensinn and Politics among Factory Workers in Germany circa
1900,” in Confrontation, Class Consciousness and the Labor Process, eds. Michael Hanagan and Charles
Stephenson (New York: Greenwood Press, 1986), p. 80.
634 Zeytinburnu Çimento Fabrikası Dahili Talimatnamesi (Đstanbul: 1947), p. 13.
635 Türkay Endüstri ve Ticaret A.S. Đstinye Kibrit Fabrikası Dahili Talimatnamesi (Đstanbul: 1956), p. 11.
636 An illuminative discussion on the introduction of time efficiency in Japan factories through factory
regulations is provided in Hashimoto Takehiko, “Punctuality and the Introduction of Scientific Management in
Japan”, Japan Review, no. 14 (2002).
637 Mensucat Santral Türk Anonim Sirketi Đçyönetmeliği, p. 4; General Elektrik Türk Anonim Ortaklığı Ampul
Fabrikası Dahili Talimatnamesi (Đstanbul: 1954), p. 13. In an earlier version, Mensucat Santral inner regulation
document wrote that the starting and finishing hours was adjusted according to the clock of the Yedikule train
station. Mensucat Santral Dahili Talimatnamesi (Đstanbul: Resimli Ay Matbaası, 1938), p. 7
237
Fabrikası) the inner regulation guide wrote that “bringing any reading material such as
newspaper, novel and magazine into the factory is strictly forbidden and required
punishment.”638 As Đbrahim Yalçınoğlu, who was a prominent trade unionist in Malatya, told,
using the wrong door in a factory sometimes could result in losing one’s job: “One worker
was given the sack in Malatya. I asked them (the management) the reason of its dismissal.
They said they had fired him because he had entered the workplace by using the door
allocated to the officers. Can you believe that? People used to be fired because of using the
door of the officers.”639 In the Sümerbank Textile Factory in Kayseri one worker was
punished for using a route prohibited to workers for going to the dining hall. What drew the
strongest reaction of workers was that this poor worker also was beaten by gatekeepers for the
same infraction.640
In another textile mill established in Bomonti (Kiryako Pamukoğlu and Sons Textile
Mill), it was reported that 36 workers were penalized in one month for various infringements.
Among them five workers were penalized for talking in the toilet and two workers were
penalized for wasting water while two other were penalized for eating on duty in the weaving
room. Another worker was fined for getting weighed while working on the weaving loom.
The total fines collected from workers came to approximately 125 liras.641 In docks and
railway repair shops, workers’ conduct with associates and superintendents were strictly
governed through internal regulations. Workers could be fined for “showing disrespect or
638 Lütfi Erisçi, Sosyal Tarih Çalısmaları (Đstanbul: TÜSTAV Yayınları, 2003), p. 113. Erisçi remarks that the
guide forbids not just reading in the factory during work, it also forbids bringing reading materials into the
workplace.
639 Gözde Yirmibesoğlu, “Trade Unionism in Turkey: The Self-Understanding of Türk-Đs and Its Role in Society
and Politics (1950-1982)” (Ph.D. diss., Middle East Technical University, 2007), p. 90.
640 “Đç Hizmetler Sefliğinin Dikkatine,” Gayret, 16 June 1951.
641 “Her gün Ceza Alan Đsçiler,” Gece Postası, 17 March 1956.
238
becoming saucy” with supervisors. Using ill language and disorderly behaviors could also be
used as pretexts to penalize workers.642 In a survey on trade unions in Đzmir, Z. F. Fındıkoğlu
observed that the foremost grievances of tramcar workers concerned the disciplinary rules of
the company. A few minutes of stops at the stations for drinking water or buying cigarette
would cost a loss of 200 kurus for tramcar drivers. Workers who were fined for such
infractions also lost their share in non-productive bonuses.643 Tramcar workers in Đstanbul
succeeded in persuading the management to amend the stringent disciplinary codes in the
internal regulations after a protracted struggle.644
One trade union militant said that inner regulations were “prepared as to the
employers’ sweet will without consultation to workers.” For this reason, these regulations
regarded the workers as “loyal slaves” depriving them even from satisfying their basic needs
such as going to toilet or taking a brief break to smoke cigarette.645 Factory discipline was
designed in part to increase workers’ effort beyond that which they would freely supply to
firms. One textile mill in Đstanbul did not let workers to go out of the plant during the lunch
breaks even it did not provide lunch. Workers were coerced to do shopping from a specific
grocery which had an access from factory court. Workers demanded that the unions should
collectively deal with the “inner regulations problem” immediately. 646 In the Tekel tobacco
642 Devlet Demiryolları ve Limanları Đsletme Umum Müdürlüğü Đsyerlerine Mahsus Yeknesak Dahili
Talimatname (Đstanbul: Haydarpasa Demiryollar Matbaası, 1939), p. 24.
643 Z. Fahri Fındıkoğlu, Đzmir’de Đsçi Sendikaları Hakkında Sosyolojik Bazı Müsahedeler (Đstanbul: Đsmail Akgün
Matbaası, 1952), p. 12.
644 “ĐETT Đsçileri Dahili Talimatnamesinde Değisiklik,” Gece Postası, 19 November 1956.
645 Kemal Sülker, “Büyük Đsçi Röportajı: Fabrika Đç Yönetmeliklerinden Sikayet Eksik Olmuyor,” Gece Postası,
17 November 1951.
646 Kemal Sülker, “Büyük Đsçi Röportajı: Kaplan Mensucat Fabrikası Đsçi Mümessilleri Ne Diyor?” Gece
Postası, 9 July 1949.
239
processing factory established in Üsküdar, workers were not allowed to move out into the
factory courtyard during the lunch breaks. They had to spend the breaks in the warehouses,
which was very annoying because of the heavy and dizzying nicotine smell, and intense
humidity in the air.647
The textile Workers Union demanded that the inner regulation guides should be all the
same and a commission consisted of both workers and employers should evaluate the
violations of the rules.648 In a similar vein the Đstanbul Tobacco Workers’ Union also
demanded that worker delegates should be incorporated in the preparatory process of inner
regulations.649 Still some other trade unions complained that the inner regulations were
frequently revised by the employers without any consultation with workers and outside the
knowledge of the Ministry of Labor.650
Factory managements also manipulated inner regulations to force employees to work
overtime. Since factory regulation guides were rarely checked by the authorities, employers
could make such requests depending on the “factory codes.”651 It seems that the injustices
arising from inner regulations hit rubber industry workers the most. In the mid-1950s there
were some 180 middle- and large-scale workplaces in Đstanbul employing about 7-8 thousand
workers in the industry. The workplaces in the industry operated from July to December. A
period of six or seven months after December was known as “dead time” or “season” when
workers were discharged without any payment. This treatment, workers believed, was
647 “Üsküdar Tekel Tütün Fabrikası Đsçileri,” Gece Postası, 25 April 1952.
648 Kemal Sülker, “Đsyerleri Đç Yönetmelikleri Đçin Tesebbüsler,” Gece Postası, 4 February 1956.
649 Mustafa Özçelik, 1930-1950 Arasında Tütüncülerin Tarihi, p. 131.
650 Đs yerlerinde Çalısma Sartlarının Vekaletçe Tespiti Đsteniyor,” Aksam, 6 May 1955; “Đç Yönetmelikler Đsçiden
Habersiz Değistirilmemeli,” 22 July 1957; “Đsyeri Đç Yönetmelikleri Tek Taraflı Olarak Bozulamaz,” Gece
Postası, 16 Temmuz 1958; “Đç Yönetmelik Đstenmiyor,” Đsçinin Sesi, 12 September 1960.
651 For example, see “Yemen Mensucat Đsçilerinin Dertleri Çok,” Gece Postası, 9 August 1952.
240
certainly against the law. Yet, employers claimed the right to kick-off workers without any
feeling of responsibility because “the season” was installed in the inner regulation guides.652
In one rubber-tire factory established in Topkapı an article put in the inner regulation guide
enabled the employer to relocate and scale down the wage of any worker to the minimum
level whenever he wished. On the basis of this article, which was inimical to the content and
essence of the labor law, workers argued, the employer could resort to any trickery and
manipulation to enforce workers to leave the factory without any claim for compensation.653
The case of rubber industry workers reveals that factory regulations were not only functional
for exerting labor discipline on the shop floor, but also for circumventing job security. When
the Petroleum, Chemical and Rubber Industry Workers’ Trade Union (Lastik-Đs) appealed to
the Ministry of Labor to cancell “seasons” from the inner regulations, the ministry replied that
the seasonal closures and unemployment were customary practices in the industry and
workers who got a job in rubber workplaces were supposed to have accepted the terms of
employment. Therefore, the ministry concluded, there was no need for revision in the inner
regulations.654
Still some other factory owners manipulated inner regulations for repudiating
payments to their workers. For example, a leather factory owned by Nilco Oriettas and Yani
652 “Nevzad Akdeniz Đç Yönetmeliklerin Tek Taraflı Hazırlandığını Etraflıca Belirtiyor,” Gece Postası, 15
August 1951; “Lastik ve Kauçuk Đsçilerinin Sezon Sikayetleri,” Gece Postası, 1 July 1952. The dead time in
industry was a concern to 6-7 thousand workers in Đstanbul. “Lastik ve Kauçuk Đsçilerinin Karsılastığı
Güçlükler”, Gece Postası, 2 July 1951.
653 Esat Adil Müstecabi, “Türk Đsçisi ve Ücret Köleliği”, 1950. This article is provided in BCA Catalog no.
[490.01/ 204.812].
654 “Lastik iskolunda yapılan tetkikler sonunda Avrupa ve Amerika’da mevsim tatillerinin yapıldığı tespit
edilmistir. Buna mukabil memleketimizde bu iskolunda da çalısma teamülü böyle teessis etmistir. Bu itibarla
isyerlerine giren isçi esasen bu sistemi pesinen kabul etmis sayılır. Bunun tabii neticesi olarak isyerlerinin gayri
faal bulunduğu devrelerde isçiye hiçbir ücret ödenmez.” Sedat Ağralı, Günümüze Kadar Belgelerle Türk
Sendikacılığı (Đstanbul: Son Telgraf, 1967), pp. 73-74. See also “Đsçiler Muvakkat Đsçi Kaydının Kaldırılmasını
Đstedi,” Đstanbul Ekspres, 7 March 1954.
241
Kefalas closed the shop for Christmas holiday on 25 April 1952. On the next day, workers
demanded that payment be made for this short holiday, since according to the Labor Code
half of the daily wage should be paid to workers on holidays. However, Oriettas and Kefalas
argued that the Christmas was not recognized as a holiday in the inner regulations and refused
to make any payments.655
Labor discipline usually started at the gates of the factory. Since the managements
were always suspicious of theft of tools, raw materials and products, they put in the inner
regulations that workers were to be searched when leaving the workplace. In the Đstinye
Matchmaking Factory, for instance, workers who refused to get searched at the factory door
were laid-off according to factory rules.656
Many changes that attended management’s concern with greater time discipline further
contributed to the workers’ sense of encroachment. The automatic punch clocks which
withdrew the free time before the beginning of work and after lunch were particularly
offensive. At issue were changes in the heretofore accepted norms of factory life which had
never been codified before in the work rules. In the Sümerbank Ereğli Factory workers
complained that they were obligated to punch in and out four times in a day which was not
only a real burden for them, but also injurious for it showed the management’s distrust in its
operatives.657 On the other hand, there were also cases where the workers tried to use this
weapon of employers against them. In the Bahariye Textile Factory, for example, one
important complaint of the workers was that because of the absence of time cards to punch in
655 “Fabrika Đçi Yönetmeliklerde Kanuna Aykırı Hükümler Var,” Gece Postası, 16 January 1953.
656 Türkay Endüstri ve Ticaret A.S. Đstinye Kibrit Fabrikası Dahili Talimatnamesi, p. 12.
657 “Konya’ya Gelecek Olan Cumhurbaskanı’na Sunulmak Üzere Hazırlanmıs Đsçilerin Dert ve Dilekleri,” BCA
Catalog no. [030.01/112.710.4].
242
and out, they were not able to prove the overtime work for which the employer had been
refusing to pay.658
As has been suggested, the inner regulations were the primary instrument in the hands
of the employers to exert discipline on the shop floor. Under discipline workers were
rewarded not only according to their output, but also based on their behavior in the workplace.
The historical evidence suggests that the disciplinary mechanism of inner regulations was
used widely as instruments of economic regulation during a period when modern managerial
techniques had not fully developed and when firms still suffered from the lack of a stable and
permanent labor force which could lead to unexpected shifts in the business cycle.
Concurrently, the discipline became more severe especially in privately owned
workplaces. Inner regulations, which were imposed by the employer on the newly hired
worker, were very detailed and lengthy; hygiene and security measures were added to all
others. Many workplaces, which had preserved comparatively large areas of freedom, were
subjected to more rigorous schedules with strict control over comings and goings. This
fostered growing protests related to industrial discipline.
Inner regulations sometimes became the targets of collective labor disputes. In a
conflict raised by the Đstanbul Weaving and Textile Industry Workers Trade Union in a
workshop established in Küçükpazar, the demand was the removal of an article in the
regulation guide which stated that temporary workers could be employed.659 Workers who
were employed temporarily were deprived of many of the rights enjoyed by the regularfulltime
workers, such as social security, work security and the right to raise labor conflicts. It
658 Kemal Sülker, “Bahariye Mensucat Fabrikası Đsçileri Dertlerini Anlattı,” Gece Postası, 28 January 1956;
“Bahariye Mensucat’ta Fazla Mesai,” Gece Postası, 30 March 1956.
659 “Sendika Haberleri,” Gece Postası, 11 February 1956.
243
is noteworthy that manipulating temporary workers was an ordinary tactic for employers in
particular branches of industry. Hiring half of the needed labor force as temporary workers
could secure them from annoying collective labor disputes, since trade unions could raise
collective labor disputes only in workplaces where they represented more than half of the
employees.660
In the Đleri textile mill established in Zeytinburnu workers raised a collective labor
dispute in 1960 claiming that the inner regulation guide furnished the employer with
“unlimited potency.” According to the inner regulation guide, the employer had the full
authority to add new shifts, alter the work hours and change the payment methods. As soon as
the management got informed about the preparations of the workers, the employer of the mill
laid-off the worker representative, Hatice Đnanç.661 However, the interesting point of this
particular incident was that the course of the events revealed the state’s positive attitude
towards the employers’ claim to set the terms of employment relationship arbitrarily. Despite
all the aggressiveness of the employer, the workers of the Đleri textile mill managed to bring
their grievances to the Provincial Labor Directorate. However, the labor directorate rejected
the workers’ appeal without any hesitation. This act showed the state’s unwillingness to
intervene in the “private law” established by employers in order to discipline their workers.662
In a similar vein, the High Arbitration Committee often favored the employers when
workers raised collective labor conflicts about inner regulations. For example, in mid-1954
the Committee rejected the appeals of workers in two textile mills confirming that factory
660 For different examples, see “Kanuni Haklara Karsı Yeni Hile: Muvakkat Đsçi,” Gece Postası, 30 May 1957.
661 It is noteworthy that Hatice Đnanç was one of the few female worker representatives elected by workers in a
textile mill.
662 Đstanbul Tekstil ve Örme Sanayii Đsçileri Sendikası 1959-1961 Devresi Faaliyet Raporu (Đstanbul: Alpaslan
Matbaası, 1961), pp. 38-39.
244
legislation was the private domain of employers.663 We lack sufficient data about the
distribution of cases brought to the High Arbitration Committee among matters of dispute.
Yet, the data collected by Orhan Tuna on the decisions of the Đstanbul Provincial Arbitration
Committee reveals that the great majority of industrial disputes raised by workers for the
alterations of working conditions were rejected by arbitration authorities between 1959 and
1963.664
On the other hand, the historical evidence reveals that workers in state-owned firms
gained considerable ground towards the end of the 1950s in terms of influencing the
preparation process of the inner regulations. For example, the Tobacco, Liquor, and Food
Processing Trade Unions Federation, which was organized in the workplaces of General
Directorate of Monopolies, managed to put its members’ demands in the new inner regulation
guides prepared in 1959. With the changes in the guide, inner regulations were brought into
conformity with the protective provisions of the Labor Code.665
Labor Inspection
Whereas it is a neglected issue in the Turkish labor historiography, many historians
recognize that the establishment of central labor inspection was of great importance in
advancing nineteenth and early twentieth century social and legal reform. For instance, Parris
maintains that inspectors played a leading role in the improvement and regulation of labor
663 “Yüksek Hakem Kurulu’nun Son Kararları,” Gece Postası, 25 June 1954.
664 Tuna, Toplu Đs Sözlesmesi Düzeninin Đktisadi ve Sosyal Tesirleri, p. 39.
665 Yıldırım Koç, Türkiye’de Đsçiler ve Sendikalar (Tarihten Sayfalar) (Ankara: Türkiye Yol-Đs Sendikası
Yayınları, 2000), pp. 54-55.
245
legislation in Britain, including the development of their own powers.666 Marx also
acknowledges the role of inspection in the development of social regulation and reform.667
The nature of the occupation provided the inspectors an insight into the terrible working and
living conditions of the laboring poor. Interactive relation between workers and inspectors in
the workplaces helped to improve these conditions after the mid-nineteenth century in
England. By the last quarter of the century their jobs were insulated from changes in political
administration and their occupation had become a reformist profession, with its own schools
and traditions. In a similar vein, Russian factory inspectors had the right of investigation and
conciliation, and their authority over the factory managers was so great that their work
became very influential in the enforcement of workplace legislation during the late Tsarist
regime. Jacob Walkin argues that “It is apparent that the inspectors were chiefly attracted by
that phase of their work which enabled them to assist the weak and downtrodden working
class, and … despite many obstacles and difficulties over which they had no control, they
succeeded in doing a commendable job.”668
Labor inspection in Turkey, however, was established as late as in 1936 by the Labor
Code. The institution was envisaged in the Labor Code to be one important mechanism
mediating directly between Ministry of Labor and workers. Article 56 and 92 of the Labor
666 Harry Parris, “The Nineteenth Century Revolution in Government: A Reappraisal Reappraised,” The
Historical Journal, vol.3 (1960).
667 Marx gives many examples of courageous legal proceedings prepared by factory inspectors against the
pressure of the employers. Karl Marx, Capital Volume I, (Middlesex: Penguin Books, 1976), especially chapter
10, pp. 389-410. Bartrip, taking a contrary position, argues that the importance of inspection has been
exaggerated since “the resources allocated to the new agencies were too small to allow them to achieve much in
terms of enforcement” and “their impact on government policy was limited.” P. W. J. Bartrip, “British
Government Inspection, 1832-1875: Some Observations,” The Historical Journal, vol. 25, no.3 (1982), p. 605.
However, it must be noted that there is a certain consensus among British historians about the positive role of
inspectors in advancing labor reform.
668 Jacob Walkin, “The Attitude of the Tsarist Government Toward the Labor Problem,” The American Slavic
and East European Review, vol.13, no.2 (April 1954), p.171. See also F. P. Pavlov, “Ten Years of Experience
(Excerpts from Reminiscences, Impressions, and Observations of Factory Life),” in The Russian Worker, Life
and Labor under the Tsarist Regime, ed. Victoria E. Bonnel (London: University of California Press, 1983).
246
Code foresaw, in accordance with other examples in the world, that labor inspectors fulfill a
number of functions in the system.669 Above all, labor inspectors were held responsible for
monitoring and supporting the implementation of the provisions of labor legislation. It was
maintained that a strong labor inspection institution was the prerequisite for the labor
legislation to become effective in the industrial life. Labor inspectors were endowed with the
authority to make controls in the workplaces upon their own will or workers’ complaints. The
primary duty of inspectors was to mediate in the second stage of the collective dispute
settlement system. At the first stage of the conciliation mechanism, the workers delegates and
the employers were to make an attempt to solve the dispute. If the parties failed to secure a
voluntary agreement, the inspectors were to visit the workplace and continue the efforts to
solve the problem. According to the “Instructions to Labor Inspectors” guide, the very aim of
inspectors’ mediation was to achieve a “peaceful” agreement between entrepreneurs and
workers. It was also the duty of the labor inspector to accompany and control the worker
representative elections in the workplaces. Finally, the labor inspectors made financial and
administrative auditing of the trade unions. Therefore, the inspector was envisaged to be both
an advisor, a supervisor and an enforcement agent, with an overall mission of guidance. With
such broad powers, labor inspectors could have significant effects on the employment terms
and conditions of workers. Labor inspectorates were frequently the only state authority with
direct access to enforce labor laws in the workplace.
A 1956 report prepared by the Ministry of Labor reveals that the number of worker
complaints delivered to Regional Labor Directorates rose steadily during the course of the
1950s. The number of complaints increased from roughly 11,000 in 1952 to 13,500 in 1955,
669 Đ. Hakkı Yeniay, “Muhtelif Memleketlerde ve Bizde Đs Teftisi,” Çalısma Dergisi, no. 10 (1946); Orhan Tuna,
“Đs Hayatının Teftis ve Murakebesi,” Çalısma Dergisi, no. 12 (1946).
247
representing 20 percent increase during the period.670 The report reveals that while greater
amount of these complains were transferred from the Labor Directorates to the labor courts,
the workload of labor inspectors was also potentiated. The statistics show that inspector visits
to workplaces upon worker complaints increased considerably after 1952. While the average
number of visits per month was recorded to be 284 in 1952, this figure increased to 415 in
1956. Added to this number, 200 visits took place to arbitrate collective labor disputes, 252 to
control the worker representative elections and 288 visits were made for auditing the trade
unions.671
While these figures provide some idea about how intense the work of the labor
inspectors was, they do not provide a clue about the effectiveness of these inspections.
Archival material and newspaper reports throughout the 1950s provide numerous examples to
test the effect of the inspector visits in the workplaces on workplace relations. For example, in
early 1954 workers of a roofing tile factory applied to the Labor Directorate on the grounds
that they were not paid for the Sundays and overtime work. Upon this appeal a labor inspector
made investigations in the factory and recognized that the workers’ claim was true. However,
even months after the investigation had taken place, the workers said, the employer was still
disregarding the decision that payments be made to the workers immediately. Moreover, the
complainants were laid off right after the inspector’s visit.672
In numerous letters sent to the authors of newspapers workers were expressing their
discontentment with the work of inspectors. The Yunus Cement Factory Workers, for
instance, wrote that inspectors never listened to their complaints in their visits to the factory
670 “Dördüncü Üç Aylık Devre Đstatistikleri,” Çalısma Vekaleti Dergisi, no. 4 (1956).
671 Ibid.
672 “Çesitli Sikayetleri Olan Tuğla Đsçileri,” Gece Postası, 6 June 1954.
248
and they always contented themselves with talking to the managers and employer.673 In
another case the employer’s disrespect for the inspectors’ operations was particularly noticed.
Some union activists claimed that the employers were too comfortable during the inspections
and even did not refrain from assaulting on the worker representatives in the presence of the
inspectors.674 In 1959, the Leather and Tannery Workers’ Trade Union initiated collective
labor disputes in several leather factories located in Kazlıçesme for the employers did not
fulfill the legal obligations of providing safety and hygiene in the workplaces. The
Kazlıçesme leather factories were noted by the concerned public for their awful workplace
conditions. They were poorly ventilated, malodorous and dark places, overrun with big rats.
Many employers did not provide proper working clothes and separate places where workers
could eat their lunches. It was an obvious fact that the working conditions of leather factories
did not comply with the provisions provided in the Hygiene Act and Labor Code. However,
the workers complained, the labor inspectors did not even walk through the departments in the
factories and did not bother themselves with talking to the suffering workers. The inspectors,
as they often did, just talked with the employers and wrote their reports according to their
statements. However, the unionist workers did not give up easily, and made frequent calls to
the Regional Labor Directorate in Đstanbul and Ministry in Ankara to reexamine the situation
in Kazlıçesme. With their efforts, finally, the Regional Labor Director made a visit to the
leather factories in the region in company with the unionists. Having seen the terrible
employment conditions, the report in KĐM magazine reported that the director had to admit
673 “Yunus Çimento Fabrikası Đsçileri,” Gece Postası, 16 March 1951.
674 “Đs Müfettisleri,” Gece Postası, 31 October 1951.
249
that the workers were legitimate in their demands, and decided on the closure of one shop “as
a warning to others.”675
Still other workers were more worried about the ineffectiveness of the inspection
system in forcing the employers to respect the rules and protecting workers against the
arbitrary acts of factory managers. The union activists who were employed in the State
Economic Enterprises in the provincial cities were particularly concerned about the rareness
of inspections and the lack of compulsiveness. As one activist railway worker from Eskisehir
recalled of the labor inspection system:
The future of a worker was not clear. If a worker complained about an inspector
from Ankara about the worn out clothes at the workplace and blamed the employer
for not providing new ones, you could not find this worker again in his place. They
used to send such workers to another place to work or discharge them from the
employment. We had no idea about their future. Everything was done in a
mysterious way.676
One letter written by the chairman of the Đstanbul Food Industry Workers’ Trade
Union, Zühtü Tetey, for the Ministry of Labor in 1948 provides a good case for the
functioning of the inspection mechanism on the shop floor.677 The letter narrates the history
of an inspection exercised in a rice milling factory in Ayvansaray. According to the letter,
about two months before the factory owner Ahmet Çanakçı had demanded the workers to
work 11 hours a day for 8 hours wage. He also threatened that anyone who complained about
the situation would be fired immediately. Upon that situation, workers’ legal representatives
made several efforts to reach out to the employer and warn him about the workers’ grievance.
675 “Teftis Meselesi,” KĐM, 15 June 1959.
676 Yirmibesoğlu, p. 96.
677 See “Đsçiler ve Sendikalarla Đlgili Umumi Evrak.” BCA Catalog no. [490.01/1439.06.01].
250
Yet, after seeing that all these attempts came to nothing, the workers asked the trade union to
deliver the complaint to the regional directorate and call an inspector.
After several attempts of the union, the letter maintains, a labor inspector was sent to
the factory on January 3, 1948. However, the whole inspection process was be a charade
from the beginning. The worker representatives found out accidentally that the regional
directorate had informed the employer about the visit two hours before the inspector came to
the factory. Having learned that, the employer organized three men in the factory to meet and
talk to the inspector. Two of these three men (Hasan Çanakçı and Hüseyin Çanakçı) were
close relatives of the employer (Ahmet Çanakçı). The third man was an old worker doing
auxiliary work in the factory and he still worked 8 hours probably because of his close
relationship with the employer. The interviews took place in a protected room and the
workers who wanted to see the inspector were precluded by the employer’s guards. Even the
representatives could not see the inspector. Workers who had seen that the trade union had
failed to defend their right, Tetey concludes, prepared their resignations. The letter ends with
an allusive question: “If the words and actions of the unions were that ignorable, why did the
government enact Law No. 5018 regarding the trade unions and make those high-sounding
words about the importance of unions?” It was also admitted by the Ministry of Labor that
employers often were informed beforehand that the inspectors would visit their workplace. It
was observed more than once that inspectors were going to factory inspections with the
private vehicles of employers.678
In many cases, the labor inspectors proved to be incompetent at applying the
provisions of the Labor Code. A number of strategies were developed by the employers in
order to evade these provisions. One strategy deployed by the employers was to depict the
678 Makal, Türkiye’de Çok Partili Dönemde Çalısma Đliskileri: 1946-1963, p. 379.
251
real number of the workers less than it really is. For instance, Kemal S. Sunar, himself an
inspector, argued that in the textile sector many employers had been hiding some of their
workers in specially designed wardrobes. In these wardrobes the workers worked long hours
without fresh air. Thus these employers could argue that their enterprises were not included
in the law since they employed fewer than ten workers.679 Trade unionist frequently
witnessed cases where the factory owners resorted to different tactics in order to prevent
inspectors from doing their jobs.680
Many unions voiced their grievance about the prejudice of labor inspectors against the
workers’ demands. The Iron and Metalwork Workers’ Union (Maden-Đs) criticized the
inspectors more than once on the grounds that they used their authority to protect the private
interests of employers.681 Many unions complained about the inspectorate and demanded a
fundamental change in the system. On several occasions, the Đstanbul Tobacco Workers Trade
Union demanded that trade union representatives with equal authority and power of inspectors
should be enabled to participate in factory inspections.682
According to the Federation of Textile Workers’ Unions, inspectors were generally
indifferent to workers’ problems. When they were not acting on the employers’ side, they
often manufactured excuses for delaying the inspections or not giving strict decisions. In such
an example inspectors were called on to visit the Vakko Cotton Print Factory by the
Federation. The inspectors, however, did not make the visit to the factory. Upon that occasion
the Federation made a second attempt and asked the Labor Directorate the reason for that
delay. The answer was intriguing. The inspectors had allegedly gone to the address of the
679 Kemal Sahi Sunar, “Đs Kanununa Direnen Đs Verenler,” Đktisadi Yürüyüs, vol. 21, no. 337 (1956), p. 9.
680 See Ersoy, Đsçi Gözü ile Đsçi ve Đsveren Münasebetleri, p. 5.
681 “Đs Müfettislerinin Đsçi Haklarına Olan Titizlikleri Azalıyor,” Gece Postası, 29 April 1955.
682 Özçelik, Tütüncülerin Tarihi, pp. 131, 159.
252
factory, yet could not find the workplace, which was in fact quite a large establishment in
Feriköy. It came to be the case that the employer had changed the place of the entrance door
and the inspectors who were left helpless had turned back because they had not been able
tofind the door number.683
Trade unions also were concerned about the manipulation of the broad authority of the
inspectors over themselves. Such concerns peaked in the mid-1950s when trade unions
launched a big campaign to press on the new government to make amendments in the Labor
Code. The chairman of the Hotel, Restaurant and Entertainment Places Workers’ Trade Union
(OLEYĐS) stated that the inspectors were intimidating the union activists with constant visits
to trade union bureaus.684 It was also reported that other unions also were complaining about
the increasing threats raised by the Ministry of Labor of legal action to inspect the unions and
close them down.685 When the tension between the unions and the government escalated once
again in 1957, the inspectors did not hesitate to close downseveral unions and seven trade
unions associations on the grounds that they were too involved in party politics.
Labor inspection encompassed many issues, such as hours of work, wages, safety,
child labor, workers’ representation system and labor disputes. An efficient and effective
labor inspectorate needed to be well funded, well staffed and well organized. In the Turkish
case none of these qualities existed in the inspection system. From the early days of its
inception, the labor inspectorate was poorly funded and understaffed. The labor inspectorate
was originally founded within the Work Bureaus, which had been established between 1936
and 1937 in 15 provinces to control and survey the implementation of the Labor Code. After
683 “Köse Kapmaca Oynayan Kapı,” Gece Postası, 21 April 1957.
684 BCA Catalog no. [490.01 /204.812.2].
685 Ibid. See also “Sendikaların Teftisi,” Forum, vol. 6, no. 62 (15 October 1956), p. 7.
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1946 these bureaus were linked directly to the Ministry of Labor and renamed the Provincial
Labor Directorates.686 The Labor Directorates staffed very few inspectors who had different
educational backgrounds and did not receive proper training on labor issues.
The inefficiency of the inspection system also was reflected in the ministry reports.
Henry Stevens, for example, who worked as an advisor in the Ministry of Labor for 21
months, prepared a special report on the problems of the labor inspectorate in Turkey with
special references to the English system. In this report Stevens argued that the budget
allocated for the Ministry of Labor was so poor that it did not allow allocating sufficient funds
to employ more inspectors and train them properly. Stevens drew attention to the potentiating
duties of the inspectors endowed by the labor legislation. The Directory for Protecting the
Health and Safety of the Workers, which had been prepared in accordance with the
regulations of the Hygiene Act and Labor Code together involved 92 articles with numerous
supplementary provisions. Moreover, there were other directories concerning the hours of
work and overtime work, and one directory concerning the factories and workplaces operated
by the state and public enterprises. When added together it made up an intricate and
voluminous “Legislation of Factory Inspection.” According to Stevens, proper training was
vital to the process of strengthening labor inspection since labor inspectors had such an
important part in the promotion of workplace safety and prevention. Not only did they enforce
labor laws in the workplace, but they also worked to improve safety through non-putative
means. However, Stevens suggested, the knowledge level and the training background of the
inspectors in Turkey were not sufficient to advise on issues such as the proper ventilation
system against toxic gases or regulations concerning factory buildings. 687
686 Niyazi Acun, “Yeni Đs Kanunu Tatbik Sahasına Girerken,” Yarım Ay, no. 49 (1937), pp.20-21.
687 “Report no. 10: Fabrika ve Đsyerlerinin Teftisi, 23 July 1946,” in Henry Stevens’ın Raporları, p. 194. BCA
Catalog no. [030.01/23.130.1]. Stevens came to Ankara in January 1946 upon the invitation of the recently
254
In 1950, the new Democrat Minister of Labor, Hulusi Köymen, admitted that given the
organizational and financial weakness of the organization, the ministry was like an “idler
roller.” The Labor Directorates were “a far cry from fulfilling their duties properly.” He also
promised that the new government would take the necessary steps to increase the funds
allocated to the inspectorates and improve the capability of the inspectors by equipping them
with core knowledge in law, administrative science, psychology and technology.688 The
Ministry of Labor made some attempts in the early years of the decade to train labor
inspectors. For instance, in 1953 one labor newspaper reported that four inspectors had been
sent to France and Switzerland for six months in order to serve their internship.689 Yet it
appears that such efforts to train inspectors were handicapped by the limited financial means
of the ministry. By the end of the decade, very little improvement had been recorded in terms
of technical means provided to inspectors. In 1958, it was reported that the Ministry of Labor
had only three vehicles allocated for inspectors’ factory visits.690
This was also true with regards to the personnel cadre of the ministry. In 1951 it was
reported that only 29 labor inspectors were serving in the Đstanbul Provincial Labor
Directorate. These 29 inspectors were responsible for monitoring and supporting the
created Ministry of Labor for making recommendations about the labor legislation. Together with another
English expert who came to Ankara about at the same time, Charles Hector Lefebure, Stevens played an active
role in the preparation of legal texts about social insurance schemes and trade unions. Mehmet Sehmus Güzel,
“Çalısma Bakanlığı’nın Kurulusu: Çalısma Hayatında Đngiliz Etkisi,” Tarih ve Toplum, vol. 9, no. 50 (February
1988).
688 BCA Catalog no. [490.01/204.812].
689 “Dört is Müfettisi Avrupa’ya Gönderilecek,” Đsçi Gazetesi, 11 May 1953.
690 Đçtimai Meseleler: 1958 Bütçe Müzakerelerinde CHP Milletvekillerinin Tenkit ve Teklifleri (Ankara: CHP
Genel Sekreterliği Arastırma ve Dokümantasyon Bürosu Yayın No. 4, 1960), p. 69. See also Orhan Tasan,
“Bedii Süngütay ve Bölge Çalısma Müdürlüğü”, Aksam, 2 April 1956.
255
implementation of labor legislation in more than 2000 workplaces.691 However, in 1958 the
situation was not better. The scope of the labor code was extended to cover 5000 workplaces
in Đstanbul and the work load of inspectors increased significantly. However, the provincial
directorate in Đstanbul functioned with only 27 officers and 28 labor inspectors in that year.692
Questions about the deficiency of the labor inspectorate were aired several times in the
parliamentary talks. For instance, during the negotiations on the 1956 budget of the ministry
of Labor, Tevfik Ünsalan, Malatya deputy of the RPP, argued that the vacant positions
indicated the ignorance of the governing party towards the surveillance and control of
workplaces. According to Ünsalan, more than twenty positions in the Ministry of Labor had
waited vacant for a long time for appointments. Ünsalan also said that although ILO had
established a Labor Institute in Đstanbul, the ministry did not make use of this institute for
training labor inspectors.693
Being a labor inspector was not such an attractive career option for university
graduates to take. According to one report, the average salary of inspectors was about 200
liras in the mid-1950s. For this simple reason, argued in the report, the vacant positions in the
inspectorates could not be filled with young and dynamic university graduates.694 Similar
suggestions were also made in the parliament in 1959 by RPP deputy Đsmail Đnan who had
served as the vice president of Türk-Đs in 1952-1953:
691 “Çalısma Bakanlığı Đsçiye Faydalı Olmaktan Çok Uzaktadır,” Aksam, 24 March 1951. See also, Đstanbul
Akaryakıt Đsçileri Sendikası 1954 Çalısma Devresi Faaliyet Raporu (Đstanbul: Faik Paran Matbaası, 1954).
692 Kemal Sülker, “5000 Đsyerine Sadece 28 Müfettis Bakıyor,” Gece Postası, 29 January 1958. It is interesting
to note that after 50 years, Turkey is not better off in terms of workplace control. According to a press release of
the Association of Labor Inspectors in 2008, the number of inspectors in charge of monitoring and controlling
about one million workplaces scattered around Đstanbul is only 100. This press release is available at
http://www.davutpasayiunutma.org/d/?p=148.
693 TBMM Zabıt Ceridesi, term 10, vol. 10-2, 28 February 1956, p. 1117.
694 See Maden-Đs Sendikası 1956-1957 Devresi Faaliyet Raporu (Đstanbul: 1957).
256
It is virtually impossible to find a single individual at the Ministry who devoted
himself to this job. It is obvious that the prosecution and organization of such a
work, which is of exceptional importance and necessitates exceptional technical
qualification, is unattainable with people who continuously change position in the
Ministry. I kindly request from the minister of labor. Inspection mechanism should
be conditioned by extra requirements different from those charged for other official
posts. An inspector is a person who is in charge of appraising the rights of worker
as an individual or collective whose demandable claims may amount to hundreds of
thousands liras. In the end we are all human beings. It would not be right to leave
such a work worth of a million or 500 thousand to the inspector who gets 250-300
liras as salary and who does not feel himself in safe.695
Sülker wrote that many young inspectors were looking for positions in the private
sector after two or three years of service in the Ministry of Labor. Once they left the
department, it was just a matter of time for inspectors to receive job offerings with high
salaries. Inspectors who resigned from the ministry and get employed in private sector might
receive as high as 2000 liras as salary.696 It also was reported that some inspectors were
tempted by bribes.697 During the office of Bedii Süngütay several inspectors were exiled from
the Đstanbul Provincial Labor Directorate to other directorates since they had been involved in
bribery. However, recurrent reports in the media predicted that corruption and malpractice
continued to haunt the institution in the late 1950s.698
695 “Vekalet teskilatında kendisini bu ise vakfetmis tek bir sahsa tesadüf etmek adeta imkansızdır. Fevkalade
mühim, fevkalade teknik hususiyeti olan böyle bir isin böylesine mütemadiyen kadro ve sahıs değistiren insanlar
tarafından takip ve tanziminin imkansızlığı asikardır. Ben Sayın Vekilden rica ediyorum. Teftis mekanizmasını
memur statüsü dısında bir takım sartlara bağlamak lazımdır. Bir müfettis, isçinin toplu veya ferdi yüzbinlerce
liraya taallûk eden hakkını tesbite memur edilen kisidir. Netice itibariyle insanız arkadaslar. Bir milyonluk, 500
bin liralık bir isi 250-300 lira aylıklı ve hayatından emniyet duymayan bir müfettise bırakırsak bunda isabet
olmaz.” TBMM Tutanak Dergisi, term 11, vol. 7, 26 February 1959, p. 1047.
696 “Đsçiler Geçinmekte Zorluk Çekiyor,” Gece Postası, 30 April 1956.
697 Kemal Sülker, “Đki Müfettisin Rüsvet Alması ve Hatra Gelenler,” Gece Postası, 28 November 1956.
698 “Teftis Meselesi,” KĐM, 15 June 1959.
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Collective Labor Disputes and Conciliation/Arbitration Mechanism
A large chapter of the 1936 Labor Code was devoted to regulations concerning labor
disputes and their settlement. As is well known, the Code treated strikes and lockouts as alike
and prohibited them all together. However, the definition of a strike was not including every
collective stoppage by the workers. A collective stoppage was not regarded as strike unless a
specified minimum number of workers was involved in the act. This minimum varied with the
size of the undertaking, rising to 100 in those employing 500 persons or more; but only 3
workers needed to be involved if the result was the stop of the work of the whole undertaking
or an essential part of it. In prohibiting strikes, the Labor Code was to a large extent merely
sanctioning the then existing position. 699 Moreover, this attitude was already embodied in the
political program of the ruling party and based on the prevailing ideology which emphasized
the solidarity and harmony of the citizens, and regarded the members of different economic
groups as representing different occupations, but not as belonging to rival classes.
The Labor Code did not merely define, prohibit and punish strikes and lockouts. It also
provided employers and workers with a procedure by which their disputes might be adjusted.
According to the Code, the collective disputes between the workers and the employers were to
be settled through the functioning of a conciliation/arbitration mechanism. The Labor Code
Article 77 dictated that a labor dispute was to be regarded as a collective labor dispute if it
happened in an industrial workplace which “by the nature of the work required employing 10
or more workers,” and if it was supported by at least one-fifth of the employees.700
699 Oscar Weigert, “The New Turkish Labor Code,” International Labor Review, vol. 35, no. 6 (June 1937),
p.770.
700 Orhan Tuna, Toplu Đs Sözlesmesi Düzeninin Đktisadi ve Sosyal Tesirleri, pp. 23-25.
258
The subject of the collective labor disputes was often wage demand, but naturally the
sole problem of the workers was not wages. Actually, the individual labor disputes were the
site of resolution of problems about labor contract, occupational health and safety,
employment periods, and weekly and annual holidays. However from time to time such
problems became subjects to collective labor disputes.701 Nevertheless, the individual disputes
raised by workers outnumbered the collective labor disputes throughout the period. For
example, in Đstanbul, while 65 collective labor disputes were raised in 1952, 7865 individual
labor disputes occurred. 7609 of them were concluded by the organs of the Ministry of Labor,
and the remaining 265 were transferred to the labor court.702 Labor courts were established in
1950 with the enactment of the Labor Courts Act (No. 5521), and were composed of one
employers’ representative and one employees’ representative and presided over by a judge
appointed for the case. The labor disputes were initiated either by the worker or the employer,
and some trade unions with good finances (like the Metal Workers’ Trade Union) normally
paid the worker’s legal expenses and occasionally a union attorney presented the worker’s
case if he is a member of that union.703 In effect, there were many grievances about the
functioning of the system during the period, especially concerning the number and efficiency
of the labor courts. Because the worker was normally reluctant, for fear of reprisal, to sue
his/her employer for individual grievances arising in the course of the individual employment
contract, the majority of the cases brought before the labor courts were initiated by workers
701 Some writers have claimed that individual disputes also may be settled through arbitration like collective
labor disputes if the employer and the employee both agree to resort it. However this has been a contentious
point in the history of labor law and the view has not been accepted by the majority of the jurists. See Toker
Dereli, Labour Law and Industrial Relations in Turkey (Đstanbul: Mentes Kitabevi, 1998), p. 169.
702 Bedi Süngütay, "Đstanbul'da Đs Kanununun Tatbik Edildiği Đsyerleri, Đsçi Sayısı ve Đs Uyusmazlıkları,"
Çalısma Vekaleti Dergisi 1, no. 2 (1953).
703 Türkiye Maden, Madeni Esya ve Makine Sanayii Đsçileri Sendikası Faaliyet Raporu (7 Ekim 1956-15 Aralık
1957) (Đstanbul: 1958), p. 16.
259
whose labor contracts had been terminated already. Moreover, there were recurrent reports in
the media that there were suits that had been under justice for as long as three years. Labor
courts, where they had been established, were inadequate to handle the growing numbers of
cases.704 The focal point of the analysis in this part of the chapter, however, will be collective
labor disputes, since it was the latter that became a site of protracted struggles between
workers and employers and left a mark on working class consciousness.
According to the Labor Code, the collective disputes between the workers and the
employers were to be settled through the functioning of a conciliation/arbitration mechanism.
This mechanism was considered to be a four-stage procedure in the law.705 According to
Article 78, at the first stage, which was called conciliation (uzlastırma), the worker delegates
and the employer or his representatives should make an attempt to solve the dispute. If the
parties failed to secure a voluntary agreement, the departmental officials from the Regional
Labor Directorate (RLD, Bölge Çalısma Müdürlüğü) were to continue the efforts to solve the
problem. Article 81 proposed that the RLD was to send officials to the workplace and a
second meeting called final conciliation (kesin uzlastırma) was organized with the parties. If
they also failed, the dispute was to be brought before the Provincial Arbitration Committee
(PAC, Đl/Vilayet Hakem Kurulu). According to Article 82, this committee was established at
the local government office and consisted of the governor or his assistant, the highest ranking
official responsible for the execution of the Labor Code, the administrator of legal issues (Đl
Hukuk Đsleri Müdürü), and two experts who were to be chosen collectively by the other three
members of the committee. The authority of the committee was binding over the parties of the
704 Ibid.; Kemal Sülker, “Đs Mahkemesi Kafi Gelmiyor”, Gece Postası, 5 June 1957.
705 Mesut Gülmez, “Ellinci Yılında Birinci Đs Yasası Üzerine Bazı Notlar,” Amme Đdaresi Dergisi, vol 19, no. 2
(June 1986), pp. 146-149; See also Resmi Gazete, 15 June 1936, p.6624.
260
dispute. However, a party who was dissatisfied with the decision could carry the case to the
High Arbitration Committee (HAC, Yüksek Hakem Kurulu) within twelve days.
The members of this last committee were one of the second chairs of the council of
state assigned by the prime minister, one professor elected by the Minister of Labor (before
1945, selecting organ was Ministry of Economy), the general director of labor under the
Ministry of Labor, a director of the Ministry of Economics, the legal director under the
Ministry of Justice, and the legal advisers of the Ministry of Labor and the Ministry of
Internal Affairs.706 The HAC was the last stage of the arbitration system and the final decision
of this authority was binding on the employer and all the workers in his undertaking. Once
settled by arbitration award, a question might not be the subject of another collective dispute
until 26 weeks had elapsed. It also was laid out in the Labor Code (Article 86) that the award
from the committee’s decisions could be extended by the cabinet to other workers laboring in
similar conditions. As will be mentioned below, the conciliation/arbitration mechanism was
manipulated consciously by some workers albeit the process was very complicated. Relations,
institutions and norms within the system were all intensely contested, since the defining
characteristic of labor law is its attention to conflicts and cooperation between different
economic and social interests.
The Labor Code became effective in June 1937, one year after its enactment by the
assembly. Some instances in the same year showed that the workers who had been employed
in the enterprises that were subject to the provision of the Labor Code made several attempts
to make use of the possibilities created by it. For example, Hüseyin Avni wrote in Yeni Adam
magazine that “the workers have already started to claim their legal rights against the
706 Ferit H. Saymen, “Đs Đhtilafları ve Hal Yolları,” in Đçtimai Siyaset Konferansları Kitap 2 (Đstanbul: ĐÜ Đktisat
Fakültesi Đçtimaiyat Enstitüsü, 1949), pp. 109-115.
261
employers.”707 Avni recorded that a factory owner complained to him that the workers who
had been very obedient and docile before the enactment of the labor code were asking
questions to him every day about the reasons of the delay in regulating the conditions of
work in accordance with the code.
Another instance was from a leather factory which did not comply with the eight
hours of work day. In the factory, the workers had stopped the work and declared that they
would not work until the employer had accepted their legal rights. In response, the factory
owner, claiming that there was a strike, called the police. However, the Work Bureau
inspectors who came to the factory with the police observed that the factory did not comply
with the code and the working time exceeded 48 hours in a week. In consequence of the
inspection the factory owner received an official warning.708
The Work Bureaus were established between 1936 and 1937 in 15 provinces to control
and survey the implementation of the Labor Code. These were directly linked, first, to the
Ministry of Economy and, after 1945, to the Ministry of Labor. In 1945 they took the name
Regional Labor Directorates. The government appropriated 100,000 Turkish liras from the
1937 budget for the operations of these bureaus.709 We have very limited knowledge about the
operations of these bureaus before the establishment of the Ministry of Labor. For instance,
the Eight Work Bureau was established in Antalya in August 1937. In less than one year it
registered 104 enterprises in Antalya, Isparta and Burdur that were included in the Labor
Code. According to inspector Necmi Algün, the Eight Bureau managed to secure a
considerable number of regulations of the Labor Code, including the 48 hours of work, in
707 Hüseyin Avni, “Đs Kanunu Nasıl Tatbik Ediliyor?” Yeni Adam, vol. 4, no. 201, (1937), p.4
708 Ibid.
709 Niyazi Acun, “Yeni Đs Kanunu Tatbik Sahasına Girerken,” Yarım Ay, no. 49 (1937), pp. 20-21.
262
these enterprises.710 We know less about the workers’ relations with the work bureaus.
Hüseyin Avni notes that after one year of its operation individual complaints of workers about
more than 100 employers were accepted by the Đstanbul Work Bureau and these employers
were taken to the court.711
Despite that other provisions of the Labor Code became effective in 1937, the
conciliation/arbitration system was put into force two years later, on 24 March 1939, with the
release of the Bylaw Concerning Labor Dispute Conciliation and Arbitration. Even after that
day only a limited number of cases was brought before provincial and high arbitration
committees until 1950. Between 1939 and 1946, only ten cases were brought to the high
arbitration committees, the final stage of the mechanism.712 According to Nuri Özsan, who
became the third minister of labor in the DP government, the total number of collective
disputes submitted to the HAC before Democrats’ accession to power on 14 May 1950 was
only 26. However, Özsan added, “the number of cases brought to the HAC between May
1950 and the end of 1951 has been recorded as 108 which clearly reveals the rising of
consciousness in workers to claim their rights.”713 The DP’s accession to power had certainly
affected the industrial relations and enhanced the self-confidence of workers. The following
words of a trade unionist are telling in this connection: “Workers gained personality in 1950.
Taking the DP’s support for granted, they started to resist against the oppression in the
workplaces. During the RPP period, the doorkeeper of the minister was like the minister
himself. In the DP period it became possible for the worker and the trade unionist to come
710 Necmi Algün, “Đs Kanunu Birinci Tatbik Yılını Tamamlarken,” Türk Akdeniz, vol. 2, no. 9 (June, 1938), p.4.
711 Avni, p.4
712 Sadri Aksoy, “Đs Kanunumuza Göre Đsçi ve Patron Đhtilafları,” Đktisadi Yürüyüs, vol. 10, no. 188 (1947). pp.
9- 12.
713 “Đsçiler ve Sendikalar,” Aksam, 9 January 1952.
263
into contact with the minister.”714 However, the primary reason behind this ever-mounting
temptation to manipulate legal ways of conflict resolution should be traced in the evolution of
codes and trade union strength throughout the period. After 1950, the number of collective
disputes raised by workers soared by almost ten times. According to statistics, the number of
collective disputes brought to the HAC raised every year after 1950 and amounted to 1412 in
1963; the year when the right to strike and lockout was recognized finally.715
As Sabahaddin Zaim has underlined, during the pre-1950 period in which real wages
were very low, workers’ aloofness towards attempting collective disputes did not stem from
the fact that there was no need to apply to the conciliation mechanism, but rather because they
were deprived of this mechanism. Many workers refrained from raising collective labor
disputes, since even the rumor of a collective dispute in a workplace might endanger the job
of workers. Especially worker representatives were under the pressure and constant
surveillance of employers.716 Worker representation was the only channel for workers to start
and continue a collective labor dispute before 1950. Even after 1951, when trade unions were
furnished with the authority to raise industrial conflicts in workplaces, worker representatives
continued to mediate a significant portion of labor disputes. Between 1951 and 1958, 311 out
of 855 industrial conflicts were issued by worker representatives.717
The crucial amendment in the labor law which gave a new momentum to labor
grievances was made with Law No. 5518 in 1950. The novelty of this law was that it provided
714 “Đsçiler 1950 yılında kisiliklerine kavustular. Đsçiler DP’ye güvenerek isyerlerindeki baskıya karsı kafa
tutmaya basladılar. CHP döneminde Bakanın kapıcısı bile bakan gibiydi. DP döneminde ise isçinin ve
sendikacının Bakanla görüsmesi mümkün oldu.” Yıldırım Koç, Türk-is Tarihinden Portreler: Eski
Sendikacılardan Anılar-Gözlemler (Ankara: Türk-Đs Yayınları, 1999), p. 82. Quoted in Koçak, “Türkiye’de Đsçi
Sınıfı Olusumunun Sessiz Yılları”, p. 112.
715 Makal, Türkiye’de Çok Partili Dönemde Çalısma Đliskileri, p. 507.
716 Zaim, Đstanbul Mensucat Sanayiinin Bünyesi ve Ücretler, p. 333.
717 Makal, p. 506.
264
job security for the worker representatives who were the compulsory mediators in the
collective labor disputes, and it allowed the trade unions to participate in raising industrial
conflicts, namely to be the mediators in place of the worker representatives, from which trade
unions had been deprived up until then.718 After 1950 the power and influence of trade unions
on workplace disputes escalated since they became more interventionist in representative
elections. Trade unions established their power on the shop floor through worker
representatives. Most of the worker representatives were elected among the ranks of trade
union members. 719
According to Law No. 5518, the meaning of the security was that a worker
representative could have recourse to PAC when he or she was fired. If it was judged by the
committee that the behavior of the employer was unjustified, the representative was to be
accepted back to the company. However, the power of this piece of legislation should not be
exaggerated. Historical evidence reveals that after 1950, employers’ pressure on worker
representatives and unionist workers continued like before. Pressure on representatives or
unionist workers often came into being when preparations for a collective dispute on the shop
floor had been heard by the employer. In such circumstances employers might use every trick
to keep workers away from representatives, such as sending representatives on compulsory
leave.720 When the Metalwork and Machine Workers Trade Union (Maden-Đs) raised a
collective labor dispute in an auto-oil factory, the employer punished the worker
representatives and cut their premiums.721 At Yesilköy airport, a worker representative was
718 Đlhami Coskundeniz, “Toplulukla is Đhtilafları, Hazırlanması ve Yürütülmesi Meseleleri,” in Sosyal Siyaset
Konferansları 7. Kitap (Đstanbul: ĐÜ Đktisat Fakültesi Đçtimaiyat Enstitüsü, 1955), p. 65.
719 “Sendikaların Tuttuğu Đsçiler Seçimleri Kazanıyor,” Maden-is, 27 April 1957.
720 “Cibali Tütün Fabrikasında Đsçi Mümesilleri Toptan Đstifaya Kalkıyor,” Gece Postası, 4 December 1957.
721 “Đsçi Mümessillerine Cephe Alan Đsveren,” Gece Postası, 12 July 1954.
265
fired without severance pay upon the decision of the Petroleum Workers Trade Union (PetrolĐs)
for raising a conflict for wage increase.722 In a textile factory established in Bakırköy, upon
a labor conflict for 50 percent wage increase, the employer offered 5 percent and collected
signatures of some workers by force, declaring that they had given up the conflict. The Textile
Workers Trade Union declared the invalidity of the signatures.723
In many cases employers’ pressure upon representatives started during the first stage
of the conciliation mechanism. Representatives who refused to come to terms with employers’
resolutions at the first round of meetings were threatened or frequently fired before the RLD
officers came to the workplace.724 It seems to be the case that employers were pretty much
untroubled by laying off worker representatives. Law No. 5518 did not provide any deterrent
punishment for dismissals and PAC’s reemployment decisions often took very long time. For
instance, worker representative Đbrahim Doğan from the supermarket retailer Migros had to
wait more than 8 months for the reemployment decision of the PAC after having been fired.
During this period he could not find any other job.725 The chairmen of the Federation of the
Textile Industry Trade Unions complained in a conference organized by reformist social
722 “Yesilköy Havaalanı Đsçileri Toplulukla Đhtilâf Çıkarıyor,” Gece Postası, 22 July 1954. For other cases of
firing the representatives and workers, see “Zorla Đhbarname Đmzalatılarak Đsçi Mümessili Çıkarılmıs,” Gece
Postası, 2 January 1955; “Bir Đsçi Đsten Çıkarıldı,” Gece Postası, 26 January 1955; “Motörlü Tasıt Đsçileri Valiyi
Hakem Seçti,” Gece Postası, 20 January 1956; “Bir Đsçi Mümessilinin Đsine Son Verildi,” Gece Postası, 13 April
1956; “6 Đsçinin Đsine Nihayet Verildi”, Gece Postası, 3 May 1956; “Sendikalı Đsçilere Hala Baskı Yapılıyor,”
Gece Postası, 12 September 1957. For other kinds of repression, such as to prohibiting the representative to
leave the loom for hearing the complaints of the workers, see “Defterdar Fabrikasında Mümessillere Baskı Var!”
Gece Postası, 21 April 1956.
723 “Đsçilerden Zorla Đmza Alan Đsveren,” Gece Postası, 28 April 1954.
724 “Kilit ve Nur Madeni Esya Fabrikalarında Baskı,” Maden-Đs, 22 April 1960.
725 “8 Aydır Durumu Belli Olmayan Đsçi Mümessili,” Gece Postası, 26 September 1957.
266
policy experts in 1954 that some employers were blacklisting the activist workers to keep
them out of their workplaces.726
The decisions of the PAC were crucial for the fate of the worker representatives.
However, the struggle did not cease with a sole judgment. In a textile mill established in
Kuruçesme the employer did not recognize the PAC’s decision of reemployment of the
worker representative Altan Bulan. Despite recurrent calls from the trade union, the employer
insisted that he would not take Bulan back to work. Moreover, he also refused to pay the
accumulated wages of this worker. The trade union was helpless before the uncompromising
attitude of the employer, but could only apply to the RLD that the latter should be penalized
for lockout action. 727
When the Zonguldak Mine Administration declared that the representative status of
Mehmet Alpdündar, a dissident mine worker, was invalid and laid him off, repercussions of
this act among workers was unpredictable. Trade unions promulgated strong messages that
condemned the administration and declared the solidarity of workers with Alpdündar.728 In
1959 another incidence which occurred in a cement factory established in Zeytinburnu drew
harsh response from workers. In this case, the representative Ali Rıza Erdem was fired
because of his efforts to organize workers in the trade union. When this was heard on the shop
floor, workers stopped the work on the night shift, and 130 out of the total 170 workers of the
factory made it clear to the employer that they would not start the engines until Erdem was
put back to work. On the following day, the police swooped down on the factory and arrested
726 Ersoy, Đsçi Gözü ile Đsçi ve Đsveren Münasebetleri, p. 5
727 “Đsyerine Đade Edilen Đsçi Mümessili,” Gece Postası, 13 January 1956.
728 Adil Asçıoğlu, “Đsçi Dayanısması,” KĐM, 6 March 1959. See also “Alpdündar Beraat Etti,” Cumhuriyet, 3
November 1959.
267
the workers who were denounced as the protagonists of this illegal act. Five workers later
reported that they had been beaten in the police station.729
The pressure was exercised especially upon active and famous unionists. The chairman
of the Leaf Tobacco Processing Workers’ Union (Yaprak Tütün Bakım ve Đsletme Đsçileri
Sendikası) was fired from the Austrian Tobacco Firm and could not find a job. Employers
made it manifest that only if he had resigned from the union would they employ him.730 This
was a common tactic, there were many reports of workers fired or forced to leave because of
being union members.731 It was, for instance, illustrative that Kemal Türkler, the chair of
Đstanbul Iron and Metalwork Workers’ Union, and Ruhi Yümlü, the general secretary of the
same union, were fired from the enamel metal factory owned by Sıtkı Bütün in February
1955. The employer argued that the reason for dismissals was the stagnation of business, not
his hostility towards the trade union. After futile negotiations the case were brought to the
Provincial Arbitration Committee. In fact, Türkler had been fired from the same factory 1.5
years earlier and returned to his job through the judgment of PAC.732
The representatives were regarded frequently by the workers as their sole channel to
seek legal remedy. On the other hand, employers saw them as potential threats to workplace
peace and industrial discipline. Therefore representative elections were crucial moments for
both workers and employers. If the man of the employer was elected, workplace terror might
begin and most of the workers might be left without any legal channel.733 For example,
729 Ağralı, pp. 74-75.
730 “Sendikalı Đsçilere Hâlâ Baskı Yapılıyor,” Gece Postası, 5 April 1954.
731 For example, see “Shell Kumpanyası Đsçi Çıkarıyor!” Gece Postası, 15 May 1954. And also, Refik
Sönmezsoy, “Zeytinburnu Çimento Đsçi Sendikasına Baskı Tazelendi,” Gece Postası, 19 February 1955.
732 “Bir Sendikanın Baskanı Đle Genel Sekreteri Đsten Çıkarıldılar,” Gece Postası, 22 February 1955.
733 Adil Asçıoğlu, “Temsilci Seçimleri,” KĐM, 24 April 1959.
268
workers from a yarn factory in Bomonti complained that the representative was in
collaboration with the boss, did not hear the demands, and did not let the inspectors talk with
the workers. 734 Süreyya Aslan who worked in a hosiery established in Topkapı sent a letter to
Gece Postası in which he detailed how the representatives who are backed by employers
could launch “a reign of terror” in the shop floor against the dissident workers. Aslan reported
that the representatives cut off his way and threatened him a number of times because he
opposed the management’s plan to cut the wages arbitrarily. Aslan also told that he could not
get to sleep at nights out of fear of getting beaten by the representatives.735 In the Tekel Box
Factory established in Cibali, workers suffered from poor communication with their
representatives. The representatives were all foremen who had been elected with the support
of the factory manager. They were blind to the workers’ problems and often perceived their
function as to dictate the management’s instructions to the workers.736
The representatives were elected once in two years in a workplace. In some
workplaces elections took some form of a festival. The voting boxes were prepared, flags
were hung and the workplace was decorated with flowers and other adornments. This was
exactly the case in the Santral Mensucat mill during the election days in 1957. In this
workplace the representative, Hakkı Cengiz, had completed his twentieth year as a
representative in the same mill and was expecting to be elected for the tenth time since
734 “Bir Đsveren ve Đsçi Mümessilinden Sikayet,” Gece Postası, 30 May 1956.
735 “Bir Fabrikada Sendikalı Đsçilere Karsı Tertipler,” Gece Postası, 7 April 1954.
736 Kemal Sülker, “Tekel Kutu Fabrikasında Çalısan Đsçilerle Röportaj,” Gece Postası, 18 July 1949.
269
1937.737 Cengiz might have held the record in this connection, but there were several other
workers who had served at least ten years as worker representatives.738
As has been noted, unionist workers and representatives ran into great troubles during
the conciliation phase of collective dispute resolution. In this phase state officials’
intervention in the process was minimal and workers were unprotected against the assaults of
employers. However, as we shall discuss in a moment, workers and trade unions often sought
dispute resolutions at the initial stages of the process. In other words, they did not prefer to
use the arbitration mechanism if they could come to terms with employers during the
negotiation phase. This had remarkable effects especially on the public sector trade unions
which produced a reconciliatory culture in their relations with the state. Direct lobbying
among the politicians and bureaucrats in Ankara, which is symbolized in the expression,
“there is Türk-Đs in Ankara,” became an important mechanism for such unions. The trade
unions with good relations with the government were also awarded financial assistance. The
ministry of labor, Mümtaz Tarhan, intimated that 600,000 liras had been spent from the
ministry budget to support the trade unions between 1954 and 1956. These allocations were
criticized severely by the concerned public, since they were not based on any objective
criterion.739 Thus confrontation with employers, including the larger one, government, was
hardly an option for these unions. The clientelistic relationship between the DP government
and Türk-Đs-affiliated unions foreshadowed the future right-wing governments’ attempts to
create a corporatist exchange.
737 Kemal Sülker, “Đsçi Mümessilliğinin Mühim Bir Safhası,” Gece Postası, 28 April 1954. It should be noted
that this occasion is perfectly in accordance with paternalist relations established in the mill.
738 “Sendikaların Mümessiller için Yapacağı Toplantı,” Gece Postası, 29 April 1957.
739 “Çalısma Vekili Mümtaz Tarhan Bütçe Encümeninde Konustu,” Maden-Đs, 16 February 1957.
270
For some other trade unions, however, negotiations in the conciliation phase did not
mean seeking compromise and making concessions, but it was the arena in which the
workers’ “marketplace bargaining power”740 could be asserted. This was particularly the case
for metalworkers. The knowledge of the productive techniques monopolized by skilled and
semi-skilled workers and the key role they played in the organization of production gave them
leverage to extract comparatively high wages from employers. That is to say, the marketplace
bargaining power of metal workers was accrued mainly from the possession of scarce skills.
According to an early assessment of Hürbilek magazine, small workplaces which
depended on qualified workers dominated the metalwork industry.741 Moreover, metalworkers
also enjoyed the close attention of their unions. The Maden-Đs union distinguished itself
among others by its well-established organizational structure, professional organizers,
employment service agency provided for union members, and mobile “thunderbolt teams”
which could respond promptly to workers’ denouncements and appeals. By 1956, Maden-Đs
was organized on a national scale and had enrolled over 6700 workers.742 According to the
1956-57 Activity Report of the Maden-Đs Board of Directors, 87.59 percent of all collective
labor disputes raised by metal workers during the period were settled in the conciliation and
740 I borrow the term from Beverly J. Silver, who contemplates on the distinction made by Erik Olin Wright
between associational and structural power of workers. Marketplace bargaining power is the first subtype of
structural power which results directly from tight labor markets. According to Silver, marketplace bargaining
power can take several forms including “(1) the possession of scarce skills that are in demand by employers, (2)
low levels of general unemployment, and (3) the ability of workers to pull out of the labor market entirely and
survive on nonwage sources of income.” See Beverly J. Silver, Forces of Labor: Workers’ Movements and
Globalization Since 1870 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), p. 13.
741 See “Đsçi ve Esnaf Tesekkülleri: Đstanbul Demir ve Madeni Esya Đsçileri Sendikası,” Hürbilek, 24 April 1948.
The historical evidence also reveals that unemployment in this sector was comparatively low. On the other hand
the marketplace bargaining power of workers was lowest in seasonal industries such as construction works and
tobacco processing where the jobs required minimum skill and the reserve army of labor is abundant.
742 Türkiye Maden, Madeni Esya ve Makine Sanayii Đsçileri Sendikası Faaliyet Raporu (7 Ekim 1956-15 Aralık
1957) (Đstanbul: Vakit Matbaası, 1958), pp. 4-5, 24; Đmren Aykut, “Türkiye Maden-Đs Sendikası,” Đktisat
Dergisi, vol. 2, no. 7 (1965), pp. 24-25; “Maden-Đs Đs ve Đsçi Bulma Teskilatı Kuruyor,” Maden-Đs, 1 March
1957.
271
final conciliation phases in favor of workers. 70.84 percent of the disputes were settled in the
first round of negotiations between the employers and the union while 16.67 percent were
settled in the final conciliation which took place with the participation of RLD officials. Only
12.49 percent of disputes were sent to arbitration committees.743According to another report
which appeared in Maden-Đs magazine in early 1959, the trade union managed to secure good
wage increases in industrial conflicts which were settled by conciliation. The report revealed
that the union achieved 100-150 kurus hourly wage increases in five workplaces in recent
months.744 It is noteworthy that these wage increases were bigger than the minimum hourly
wages received by textile workers in Đstanbul.
However, most of the labor disputes could not be settled in the conciliation phase and
were assigned to arbitration authorities. The table below presents the distribution of cases
settled in different phases of the dispute resolution mechanism. The data were collected by
Orhan Tuna from the Đstanbul PAC. This is the only collection of data available for the pre-
1963 period. The data are meaningful because Đstanbul received around 40-50 percent of all
industrial disputes during the period.
743 Türkiye Maden, Madeni Esya ve Makine Sanayii Đsçileri Sendikası Faaliyet Raporu (7 Ekim 1956-15 Aralık
1957) (Đstanbul: Vakit Matbaası, 1958), p. 16-17.
744 “Đs Đhtilafları Önemle Takibediliyor,” Maden-Đs, 31 January 1959.
272
Table 1. Distribution of Cases Settled in Different Phases of the Dispute Resolution
Mechanism
Years Disputes
settled in
conciliation
and final
Conciliation
% of
disputes
settled in
Conciliati
on
Disputes
settled in
PAC
% of
disputes
settled
in PAC
Disputes
transferred
to HAC
% of
disputes
transferred
to HAC
Total
1960 4 4.61 19 21.85 64 73.54 87
1961 9 5.86 24 20.82 112 72.82 145
1962 17 10.02 32 19.02 118 70.06 167
1
January
-18 July
1963
12 19.68 21 34.57 28 45.75 61
Total 42 9.13 96 20.87 322 70.00 460
Source: Orhan Tuna, Toplu Đs Sözlesmesi Düzeninin Đktisadi ve Sosyal Tesirleri (Ankara: Devlet
Planlama Teskilatı Yayınları, 1969), p. 26.
As the table indicates, only 9.13 percent of collective labor disputes raised in Đstanbul
were reconciled through the negotiations between workers and employers. 20.87 percent of
disputes were settled by the PAC while 70 percent were assigned to the HAC for final order.
These figures reveal that more than ninety percent of all collective disputes could not be
resolved in the conciliation phases. The great majority of the cases were brought to the last
authority of the compulsory arbitration system. Therefore we should take a closer look at the
activity and functioning of the arbitration committees, especially the HAC, to explain why the
employers tended to transfer the disputes to the arbitration authority.
The first point to note about the HAC decisions, although puzzling at first sight, is that
the committee meetings often ended up with wage increases. As noted above, the great bulk
of labor disputes were about wage demands. The limited information about the HAC
decisions between 1939 and 1958 reveals that roughly 67 percent of collective labor disputes
273
assigned to high arbitration authority was solved “with full or partial satisfaction of workers’
demands.” Since the great bulk of labor disputes involved wage demands, this meant that
about two-thirds of the collective conflicts ended in wage concessions. This was emphasized
by Celal Bayar in his opening speech of the GNA in November 1952: “The efforts of High
Arbitration Committee, which is the final competent authority for collective labor disputes
that could not be settled in provincial arbitration committees, operated to the benefit of
regulation of relations between workers and employers. As the result of the Committee’s
decisions, 10,182 workers either received wage increases varying between 25 and 50 percent
or benefited from daily food allowance.”745
From the viewpoint of the government, the functioning of the system was useful for
legitimizing the search for officially recognized state neutrality in industrial conflict. The
arbitrary and interventionist nature of the injunction, according to this line of argument,
unfairly disrupted the normal and healthy combat of the marketplace. When the grievances of
private sector workers mounted in 1959 in the wake of considerable wage increases in the
public sector, Ministry of Labor Haluk Sarman said:
We as government could not compel the employers to increase the wages of their
workers. This can only happen in countries governed by dictatorial or totalitarian
regimes. Workers in private sector could make their demands for wage increase by
raising collective labor disputes through their representatives or trade unions that
they are enrolled.746
Sarman also said that he was not in favor of the practice of setting compulsory
minimum wages which interfered with the price mechanism. This approach reflected the well
established liberal hatred against any form of state intervention in industrial relations. That
745 “Đl Hakem Kurullarında intaç olunmayan toplulukla is uyusmazlıklarının son hal mercii olan Yüksek Hakem
Kurulunun mesaisi, isçilerle isverenlerin karsılıklı münasebetlerinin nizamlanmasında müessir olmaktadır. Bu
Kurulca alınan kararlar neticesinde (on bin yüz seksen iki) isçi, (yüzde yirmi bes) ile (yüzde elli) nispetinde ücret
zammı görmüs veya ücretsiz yemek yardımından faydalanmıstır.” Quoted in Makal, pp. 507-508.
746 “Hususi Sektörde Çalısanların Ücretlerine Zam Davası,” Petrol-Đs, no. 21 (April 1959), p. 6.
274
labor and capital as equal forces negotiated the price of wages in equal terms was the basic
premise of that approach.
The argument for the alleged success of the labor dispute mechanism to advance the
workers’ wages also was used to pass over the growing demands of the unions for the
recognition of the right to strike. The conciliation/arbitration mechanism, according to this
line of argument, was a proper substitute of collective bargaining and the right to strike.
Mehmet Ünaldı, the spokesperson of the DP group, indicated this in the most straightforward
manner during a parliamentary speech in 1954 on the government’s perspective of labor
reform:
During the decade spanning from 1939 to 1950, only 41 collective disagreements
declared by the workers took place whereas during the five years of our government
and thanks to the democratic climate created by us 553 collective disagreements
took place and 379 of them, in other words 71 percent, were resolved to the benefit
of workers. I guess these figures would give a satisfactory idea about how much we
achieve in augmenting the workers’ wages to offset the deterioration of their living
conditions. Someone mentioned pressure: it is possible to perceive from these facts
how the rights and benefits that have required violent confrontations and class
struggle in other countries to materialize have been obtained by our workers through
a consistent social policy and under the conception of social justice.747
The grievance arbitration system also was approved by employers for it provided a
framework of ceaseless production instead of interrupting strikes. A series of interviews with
employers which appeared in Gece Postası reveals that employers were very supportive of the
747 “1939-1950 arasındaki 10 senelik bir devre zarfında isçiler tarafından çıkarılan toplulukla is ihtilaflarının
miktarı 41 iken iktidarımız zamanında isçi sendikalarına ve isçi temsilcilerine sağlanmıs olan demokratik hava
içinde bes sene zarfında 553 ihtilaf çıkmıs ve bunlardan 379’u isçi lehine neticelenmistir ki bunun nispeti yüzde
71’dir. Bu da isçi ücretlerinin geçim sartlarına intibak ettirilmesi hususunda ne kadar ileri gittiğimiz hakkında
kâfi bir fikir verebilir sanıyorum. Baskıdan bahsettiler: Đste arkadaslar baska memleketlerde sınıf mücadeleleri
ve sert çarpısmalarla elde edilmis olan hak ve menfaatlerin memleketimizde düzenli bir sosyal politika ve sosyal
adalet mefhumları içinde nasıl halledildiğini burada görmek kabildir.” TBMM Tutanak Dergisi, term 10, session
2, vol. 10, 28 February 1956.
275
existing system against the trade unions’ recurrent requests for the acknowledgement of the
right to strike.748
Whether the real gains provided by arbitration committees might have been, workers
often felt victimized by the official administration of the system. This sense of being stalled
and mistreated was especially caused by lengthy delays in the prosecutions of the High
Arbitration Committee. Newspaper accounts and trade union reports are full of cases in which
conflicts submitted to that HAC had waited for final resolution for long time. Although,
according to the related decree, the time granted to arbitration committees was 15 days for
reaching a solution, workers often waited about six months for a resolution. In the Boyateks
textile mill established in Eyüp, for example, the workers’ appeal for a lunch allowance had
waited for the decision of HAC for seven months.749 One year later, on 20 December 1950,
Boyateks workers induced another industrial dispute for 50 percent wage increase. The PAC
convened and adjudicated a 15 percent increase. However, the employer brought the case to
the HAC, which overruled any wage increase for the Boyateks workers. The HAC’s decision
was declared to the union after 370 days passed over the starting day of the dispute.750
A labor conflict raised by bakery workers in Đstanbul had been in the arbitration
process for about a year in the late 1955.751 A conflict raised by the Haydarpasa Rail Car Plant
workers was not resolved after two years of delay in the arbitration committees.752 By April
1956, only 36 labor conflicts were concluded by the HAC out of over 60 conflicts that had
748 “Bir Đsveren Gözü ile Sosyal Mevzular ve Grev Hürriyeti,” Gece Postası, 8 May 1955.
749 “Đstanbul Sendikaları Hakem Kurulu Kararlarından Sikayetçi,” Milliyet, 15 July 1954.
750 Đstanbul Tekstil ve Örme Sanayii Đsçileri Sendikası 1956-1957 Devresi Faaliyet Raporu (Đstanbul: Sulhi
Garan Matbaası, 1957), pp. 9-10
751 “Fırın Đsçilerinin Đhtilafı Bir Yıldır Tahkimde,” Gece Postası, 13 November 1955.
752 “Đki Yıldır Sürüklenen Bir Đs Đhtilafı Var,” Gece Postası, 14 July 1957.
276
been transferred to the committee between August and October 1955.753 Especially after 1954
the delays of the arbitration decisions became more recognizable and a matter of great
concern among the trade unions. Since workers of a workplace could not raise another dispute
until 26 weeks had elapsed over the completion of one dispute, lengthy delays in the system
often meant big financial losses for workers.
It seems to be the case that textile workers, maybe only because of the sheer quantity
of their numbers, suffered most from the slowness of the HAC decisions. By 1956, the
collective labor conflicts raised in three large industrial textile plants in Đstanbul had been
waiting in the arbitration committees for 23 months.754 The 1956-1957 activity report of the
Đstanbul Textile and Weaving Industry Workers Union stated that the compulsory arbitration
mechanism “which once availed workers to advance their earnings ceased to function
properly because of lengthy delays in the provincial and high arbitration committees.”755 The
union had launched a “collective labor dispute raising campaign” in 1955 to advance the
wages in the industry en masse, however failed to secure gains for this reason.756 The report
asserted that increasing numbers of workers were becoming alienated from the unions
because of these delays since many of them could not benefit from the results of committee
decisions for they might leave the job while the conflict for which they appealed to the
authorities lay a long time in wait for final resolution. Having committed itself to work within
the framework of labor laws and institutions, the trade union felt itself left with little strategic
recourse in the face of overwhelming adversity. For this reason union leaders seethed with
753 “Yüksek Hakem Kuruluna Đntikal Eden Đhtilaflar,” Gece Postası, 24 April 1956.
754 Ağralı, Günümüze Kadar Belgelerle Türk Sendikacılığı, p. 53.
755 Đstanbul Tekstil ve Örme Sanayii Đsçileri Sendikası 1956-1957 Devresi Faaliyet Raporu, p. 7.
756 See “20 bine Yakın Đsçi Tarafından Açılan Kampanya Gelisiyor,” Milliyet, 25 August 1955.
277
resentment against the treatment of union appeals by the HAC. They even maintained that
they had no hope of advancing workers’ rights and earnings within the system:
While, on the one hand, asserting that the necessary conditions for the recognition of
right to strike have not been established yet, the authorities, on the other hand, sit back
and watch the chaotic situation of the institution of arbitration. Since they rely on the
characteristic snail’s pace of the arbitration committees, employers do not bother
themselves, as they used to, with seeking a middle ground with unions, and enjoy the
fruits of the work of arbitration committee members who don’t have a good grasp of
social problems. This state of affairs has long worried our union, which as a
consequence, has come to a decision of not raising many collective labor disputes
during the unemployment crisis.757
The table below shows us some examples of collective labor disputes waiting for final
judgment order in the HAC which are provided in 1959-1961activity report of the textile trade
union:
Table 2. Some Examples of Collective Labor Disputes Waiting for Final Resolution in the
HAC
A.Hisarı Kendir Fabrikası 263 days Đstanbul Pamuklu Sanayii 319 days
Tekstil Dokumacılık Ltd. Sti 222 days Dünkan Đplik Fabrikası 325 days
Kuruçesme Tekstil Fabrikası 222 days Yener Đs Fabrikası 439 days
Bahariye Çikvasvili Fabrikası 222 days Rekor Đdrofil Pamuk Fabrikası 340 days
Đleri Mensucat 187 days Kot Pantolon Atölyesi 276 days
Osman Etan Havlu Fabrikası 187 days Modern Mensucat Fabrikası 294 days
Havlu Đs 254 days Develi Kendir Fabrikası 279 days
Kaplanca Mensucat 273 days
Source: Đstanbul Tekstil ve Örme Sanayii Đsçileri Sendikası 1959-1961 Devresi Faaliyet Raporu
(Đstanbul: Alpaslan Matbaası, 1961), pp. 45-46.
757 Đstanbul Tekstil ve Örme Sanayii Đsçileri Sendikası 1956-1957 Devresi Faaliyet Raporu, p. 7. “Bir yandan
kolektif is akitleri doğuracak grev hakkının verilmesi için lüzumlu sartlara henüz kavusulmadığını iddia eden
makamlar diğer taraftan tatbikatından sorumlu bulundukları Tahkim müessesesinin kesmekesliğine seyirci
kalmaktadırlar. Đsverenler Hakem kurullarının kaplumbağa süratine güvendikleri için eski devirlerde olduğu
gibi sendika ile uzlasmaya ehemmiyet vermemekte ve sosyal meselelere vukufları tam olmayan hakem kurulları
mensuplarının bu anlayıslarına dayanan çalısmaları sebebiyle hallerinden memnun yasamaktadırlar. Bu durum
sendikamızı uzun uzun düsündürdüğünden ‘issizlik krizi esnasında ihtilaf çıkarmama hususunda aldığımız
prensip kararının da tesiriyle’ toplu is ihtilafına fazla rağbet edilmemistir.”
278
1961-1962 activity report of the union reveals that the problem regarding the delays
continued until the removal of the arbitration mechanism in 1963. The conflict raised in the
Đpek weaving mill had been waiting in the committees for 442 days. In eighteen other
workplaces collective labor disputes had completed 250 days in the committees. According to
the report these lengthy delays practically deprived workers from the only mechanism to
advance their rights since when the HAC decisions did not satisfy workers, they would have
lost a year to raise another collective dispute.758
Another trouble with the arbitration mechanism for the unions stemmed from the
composition of the arbitration committees. As noted above the PACs did not involve the
representatives of the workers and employers as conflicting parties. The unions contended that
this situation particularly hit the workers: first, because the lack of qualified authorities in
many of the provincial committees brought along material mistakes as well as procedural
errors, which in the end leads to lengthy delays in the provincial committees759; secondly,
because one of the parties in a collective dispute is normally the state when the dispute is
raised in public enterprise, the authorities in the PACs could not stay objective before the
conflicting demands and interests of the parties.760
The composition of the arbitration committees was reorganized in 1954 with Law No.
6298. However, the related statute which was necessary for the application of the regulation
was not issued until late 1958. The law foresaw the representation of the parties seemingly on
758 Đstanbul Tekstil ve Örme Sanayii Đsçileri Sendikası 1961-1962 Devresi Faaliyet Raporu, (Đstanbul: Ülkü
Matbaası, 1962), p. 21.
759 Đlker Đnan Akçay, “Türkiye’de Emeğin Bir Mücadele Aracı Olarak Đs Đhtilafları: 1936-1963,” Çalısma ve
Toplum, no. 25 (2010/2), p. 48.
760 Đstanbul Đsçi Sendikaları Birliği 1954-1956 Devresi Faaliyet Raporu (Đstanbul: Rıza Koskun Matbaası, 1956),
p. 24.
279
equal terms. The PAC would consist of a judge, the regional labor director, and two
representatives of workers and employers. In the same manner, the HAC would also contain
two representatives both from workers and employers. However, this was also found
unsatisfactory by the unions. They criticized the election method of the committees.
According to the law, the employer representatives would be chosen jointly by the chair of
PAC and the regional labor director among the candidates presented by the local chamber of
industry and commerce. However, the worker representatives would be chosen directly by the
chair of PAC. In a similar vein, the workers who would attend the HAC were to be nominated
from among the worker representatives of the workplaces established in Ankara, but selected
by the Minister of Labor. This was criticized for it would preserve the tutelage of the ministry
over the arbitration committees.761
Still another source of worker complaints stemmed from the lack of consistency
between the decisions of the PAC and the HAC. As early as 1951, Orhan Tuna, who was then
a member of the Đstanbul PAC, pointed to that problem. The two committees often gave very
different decisions about the same case. The broad diversity of viewpoints between the two
committees often functioned against workers.762 Workers believed that the HAC adjudicated
every conflict to their disadvantage. In mid-1953 trade unionists observed that the HAC was
abnegating simply all increases given by the PAC. Upon the growing grievances, the Đstanbul
Alliance of Trade Unions organized an indignation meeting at Taksim Kristal Music Hall on
16 August 1953. Speakers delivered harsh words and declared their resentment against the
injustices caused by the committee’s decisions. After the meeting some of the speakers and
761 Akçay, p. 48; Kemal Sülker, “Demokratik Düzene Aykırı Bir Tahkim Nizamanamesi,” Gece Postası, 6
January 1956.
762 Orhan Tuna, “Tahkim ve Uzlastırma Sistemimiz Hakkında Bazı Mülahazalar,” Đs Dergisi, no. 11 (1951), pp.
204-205.
280
the Alliance’s board of directors were turned to prosecution. 763 The workers’ sense of being
mistreated and downtrodden by the arbitration authority continued until the removal of the
system in 1963.764
According to Ağralı, a typical labor dispute followed this course of events in the mid-
1950s:765 The labor dispute, which was started by a trade union was initially transferred to the
PAC after several weeks of foot dragging by the employer.766 The wage increase demanded
by the union was usually about 20-30 percent. The PAC would probably set the increase at 15
percent. Then the employer appealed to the HAC for, he argued, he was either paying already
above the market price for the labor, or the financial situation of the firm did not allow him to
pay more. After a long period of delay that could exceed from six months to a year and a half,
the committee was likely to conclude the dispute with a five or ten percent increase in wages.
By the time workers were deprived of the opportunity raise another dispute against the same
employer to increase their earnings.
Whatever may have been the pitfalls of the system, it was the only and indispensable
legal channel for workers to protect and advance their rights against the employers. What is
most striking is that a substantial portion of the working population was excluded totally from
the system. Most elements of the labor law system were based on a paradigm of industrial
employment which prevailed in key economic sectors in the industrialized world of the
1930s.767 The paradigm envisaged that an ideal-type worker with relatively long job tenure
763 Đstanbul Đsçi Sendikaları Birliği 1953-1954 Devresi 14 Aylık Faaliyet Raporu (Đstanbul: Faik Paran Matbaası,
1954), pp. 13-14.
764 See, Đstanbul Tekstil ve Örme Sanayii Đsçileri Sendikası 1961-1962 Devresi Faaliyet Raporu.
765 Ağralı, p. 53.
766 For details of such tactics, see Toydemir, Türkiye’de Đs Đhtilaflarının Tarihçesi, p. 19.
767 The scope of the 1936 Labor Code was limited in three dimensions. First of all agriculture and sea and air
transport were excluded. Secondly, it applied only to manual and partly manual labor, with the reservation that
281
would perform standardized tasks under the direction of hierarchical management within an
expanding economy of relatively large-scale production units. Obviously this paradigm never
captured all of the varieties of employment to which postwar labor law applied. Indeed this
was the source of considerable tension within the system. For example, the pattern of shortterm
employment in rubber-works, and construction sector effectively foreclosed access to
lengthy procedures such as union certification, mediation, and grievance arbitration. Instead
unions resorted to unpredicted resistances and top-down organizing through pressing on the
government and to investigate employment law and labor law violations. Cyclical
employment in seasonal industries such as construction led to unexpected struggles in the late
1950s and early 1960s.
Employment in construction nearly doubled in the course of the 1950s as a
consequence of the ambitious infrastructural investments of the DP government.768
Construction workers were not covered by the Labor Law. Job accidents due to the negligence
of employers were part of the everyday life in the construction sector. There was no standard
workday; during the summer, high season for the sector, the workday extended to twelve or
thirteen hours, while in winter, workers remained idle with scarce opportunities for
employment.769 A vast number of construction workers were migrants who came to the cities
from different regions of the country. Those who worked on larger projects were provided
the conditions of mental labor needed to be regulated by a special act. Lastly, only those enterprises which by the
nature of the work required employing 10 or more workers were subject to the code. According to Oscar
Weigert, who was a German expert invited to Turkey to assist in the drafting and application of the new labor
legislation, the regulations were drawn on the expectation that casual and seasonal works would be replaced by
full-time industrial employment in the long-run. See Weigert, p. 755-756. In the course of 1950s, the scope and
coverage of the labor law expanded to include seamen working in ships and the industrial undertakings which
employed more than 4 workers. But still the Labor Code covered only the minority of the total workforce by the
end of the decade.
768 Tuncer Bulutay, Employment, Unemployment and Wages in Turkey, see table 7.A
769 Kemal Sülker, “Đnsaatta Çalısanların Hazin Hali,” Gece Postası, 23 November 1957.
282
accommodation in over-crowded, dirty and stuffy barracks constructed by some private
employers. But many construction workers could not find stable shelter. The Democrat
deputy of Ordu, Refet Aksoy, complained in the parliament that many construction workers in
Ankara sought shelter in the coffeehouses or worse on the baseboards even during the
winters.770 For all that workers could not benefit from state arbitration to advance their rights
because of the short-term seasonal nature of employment contracts. Moreover, only a small
portion of construction workers were enrolled in trade unions. Of the 470 industrial disputes
that appeared in Đstanbul between 1959 and 1963, only 7 belonged to the construction
sector.771
When an American construction company which had been developing a housing estate
in Ankara laid off 550 workers without severence pay in late 1959, workers had no option
other than to organize a spontaneous action to claim their rights. The Hamilton Company did
not even pay the accumulated earnings of the workers who had labored in strenuous
conditions for six months. Workers were led by the grassroots organizer and the chairman of
Ankara Construction Workers Trade Union, Tahir Öztürk, who became known as Fukara
Tahir by the workers. Fukara Tahir was a migrant worker and became a populist leader who
would be a key figure in the struggles of construction workers in the 1960s. His
uncompromising militancy, his radical style and militancy, all reflected the type of leadership
expected by construction workers. On November 2, 550 workers marched to the Ministry of
Labor after a fiery speech by Tahir. On their way, they clashed with police forces, broke the
blockades, and finally managed to walk through the populated streets of the city and arrived at
the ministry. After long negotiations with the ministry authorities, the RLD promised the
770 TBMM Tutanak Dergisi, term 10, vol. 23, 26 February 1952, p. 1088.
771 Tuna, Toplu Đs Sözlesmesi Düzeninin Đktisadi ve Sosyal Tesirleri, p. 42.
283
workers to sue the company for engaging in lockout.772 About three years after this successful
protest, on 3 May 1962, 5000 thousand construction would make a similar march to protest
the unemployment in construction sector, but this time to the National Assembly. Tahir talked
to the presidents of the GNA and the newly established Senate, and demanded that working
hours be reduced to eight hours in the industry. This protest would be known as the “march of
the hungry” or the “barefoot march”.773
There were still other obstacles which prevented workers in particular workplaces from
benefitting from the collective labor disputes system. For example, the age restriction to enroll
in the trade unions precluded many workers from pursuing a strategy of manipulating legal
channels. According to the 1950 Bylaw on Arbitration, trade unions could raise collective
labor disputes only in workplaces where they represented more than half of the employees.
However, the 1947 Trade Unions Law (No. 5018) stipulated that the unions could not enroll
workers younger than 19. Therefore, in many workplaces in which child workers constituted
the majority, Petrol-Đs Magazine claimed, it was impossible to raise industrial conflicts for
wage increase.774
772 Adil Asçıoğlu, “Bakanlık Önünde Toplananlar,” KĐM, 7 November 1959; “Ankara’da Polislerle Đsçiler
Arasında Dün Cereyan Eden Hadise,” Cumhuriyet, 3 November 1959.
773 See Đsmet Demir, Grev ve Direnisler Üzerine: Anılar-Deneyler Đsçi Sınıfı Mücadelesinden Bir Kesit (1962-
1975) (Đstanbul: Diyalektik Yayınları, 1994), p. 24; Aziz Çelik, Sina Pamukçu ile Sendikalı Yıllar: Maden-Đs,
TĐP, Türk-Đs ve DĐSK’ten Anılar (Đstanbul: TÜSTAV Yayınları, 2010), pp. 101-105; “Yapı Đsçileri Ankara’da
Đzinsiz Yürüyüs Yaptılar,” Cumhuriyet, 4 May 1962.
774 “Hususi Sektörde Çalısanların Ücretlerine Zam Davası,” Petrol-Đs Dergisi, no. 21 (April 1959), p.6
284
Conclusion
This chapter revealed the significance of law, for studying the working class
formation. The analysis of inner regulations reveals that the everyday workings of the law
were crucial in the constitution of labor control in the production process in a period when
labor legislation was in the process of being made. Managements’ concern with greater
punctuality and work discipline reflected in the inner regulations contributed to the workers’
sense of encroachment and fostered growing protests of the worker unions. Our analysis also
reveals that the legal authority was disinclined to intervene in the “private law” established by
employers in order to exert discipline in this historical conjuncture when the legal
infrastructure of state controlled labor relations was in the process of construction. Issues of
control and conflict were structured through the ongoing micropolitics of positioning and
legitimation.
Labor inspection was one of the great novelties introduced by the Labor Code. The
institution became more important in the immediate aftermath of World War II with the
foundation of regional labor directorates. It was envisaged to be an important mechanism for
monitoring and supporting the implementation of the provisions of labor legislation.
However, the analysis presented above reveals that the inspection system remained ineffective
in enforcing the provisions of labor legislation on the shop floor. It lacked the institutional
power in terms of both financial capacity and human resources. Consequently, the profession
failed to develop its own ethos and inclusive culture where every member of the profession
could regard his or her role as advancing the conditions of working masses. While the
inspectors in the British and Russian experiences became a powerful ally of the working class
285
movements, in the Turkish case labor inspectors could not insulate themselves from the
pressures of the factory managements and public administration. Workers were well aware of
the collaboration between the inspectors responsible for labor issues and the employers.
The legalization of labor relations and implementation of new social policies took
place in a period of explosive growth in law making in general. These laws and policies
envisioned a sea change in the institutional relation between the actors in production
(managers, workers, trade unions, inspectors and public institutions). As the next chapter
shows the legalization of labor relations gave way to the popularization of the notion of rights.
The grievance machinery constituted workers as industrial citizens with rights and
obligations.
The institutional reform process in the field of labor law had significant implications in
terms of working class politics and action. Although it was still a work in process, the
rudimentary ideology and apparatus of legality had the effect of inciting new forms of
working class action and language riding on the call for legality and rights. Raising and
prosecuting collective labor disputes undoubtedly provided self-confidence and collective
training for organized workers. Considering that 1104 industrial disputes were raised by
workers between 1951and 1960,775 we may assume that tens of thousands workers lived this
experience. On the other hand, the workers’ seizure of rights rhetoric meant that their activism
was at least partially channeled into, and restrained by, the state’s new regulatory machinery
and its discourse of legality.
775 Makal, Türkiye’de Çok Partili Dönemde Çalısma Đliskileri, p. 507.
286
CHAPTER 5
WORKING CLASS LANGUAGE, IDENTITY AND POLITICS
In the previous chapters it was revealed that a critical language which unraveled the
conflicting interests between workers and employers developed during the period. The social
relations and conflicts centered on work and off-work experiences manifested itself in the
formation of a distinct class culture. This chapter will examine more the ideas and
accompanying languages of workers. The political culture on which the working class
language was built also will be discussed.
The late 1940s and 1950s witnessed the emergence of an urban working class in the
sense of an amplitude of men and women sharing a common class position. It also has been
argued in the previous chapters that there emerged a working class in the sense of a social
category with distinct culture and with the propensity to organize in class specific forms. The
development and transformation of the language of class provide one indicator about what
people felt and thought, about their experience, self-identification, consciousness, aims and
collective actions. The first section of this chapter is reserved for an analysis of the
transformation of the concept of class in the first half of the twentieth century. It is argued that
the late 1940s and 1950s were crucial years in which the terms of class were established
definitely. What follows is a brief examination of working class collective action during the
period.
287
One particular strike incident, the Đzmir dock workers’ strike, is analyzed to reveal its
constituent role in the formation of class identity. The remaining part of the chapter focuses
on alternative visions of class during the period. As emphasized above, this was a period in
which great steps were taken in terms of legal and institutional structuring of labor relations
with the establishment of government departments, laws and regulations and the
establishment of trade unions.
Here we need to add the structuring of the political party system. Along with these
institutional transformations, a new discourse on the working class was emerging from within
these institutions. These influences had restrictive effects on the formation of distinct class
culture and identity. On the other hand, the experience of economic and social developments
in the course of the late 1940s and 1950s opened channels which enabled workers to advance
the struggle and challenge the legitimacy of the established order in which workers suffered
from all kinds of deprivations. Through these channels, it is argued, a more radical working
class identity and politics emerged by the early 1960s.
Language of Class: Transformation of a Concept
Until the final years of the nineteenth century the concept of worker was not prominent
in the social and political language in contrast to general categories like ahali (people) and in
contrast to occupational corporate categories (like esnaf). Workers were organized in and
represented by guild-like organizations which had been part of the Ottoman scene for many
centuries. Unions and syndicates came late in Ottoman history as part of the tide of European
capital penetration in the late nineteenth century. Unlike guilds these organizations were
illegitimate in the eyes of the state and largely were associated with the foreign corporations
288
established in the Ottoman land.776 During the strike wave of 1908, many unions were created
in the act of striking and often died when the strikes were over.777 The brief legal existence of
unions came to an end with the legislation of forbidding such organizations in the public
sector.
The concept of amele became prominent probably in the final years of the nineteenth
century to designate both the skilled and unskilled workers in the post-guild systems of
production in the early factories and the members of some of the trades like porters’ which
were modernized in the 1890s.778 Amele was an ambiguous concept and continued to be so in
the twentieth century until it finally disappeared from the political vocabulary in the late
1940s. As a matter of fact most industrial workers of the urban centers came from artisanal
backgrounds where they had acquired sufficient skills to enable them to get into the newly
founded factories. When the government sent workers to Germany for training during the
World War I, they were either craftsmen (usta) or students. Such people tended to identify
with their craft or, at best, with a rudimentary sense of class as members of a social category
of laboring men sharing similar material conditions.779 Along with Amele, ahali (people),
avam (common people), ahad-i nas (a synonym of avam) and fakirler sınıfı (the poor class)
were other terms used frequently in the social and political vocabulary of the period.
The ambiguity of the concept of amele was benefited for political reasons both by the
Union and Progress cadres and later by the Kemalists. Inspired by the corporatist and populist
776 Donald Quataert, “The Social History of Labor in the Ottoman Empire, 1800-1914,” in The Social History of
Labor in the Middle East, ed. Ellis Jay Goldberg (Boulder: Westview Press, 1996), pp. 28-29.
777 See Yavuz Selim Karakısla, “The 1908 Strike Wave in the Ottoman Empire,” The Turkish Studies
Association Bulletin, vol. 16, no. 2 (September 1992).
778 Ibid. , p. 30.
779 Feroz Ahmad, “The Development of Working-Class Consciousness in Republican Turkey, 1923-1945,” in
Workers and the Working Class in Ottoman Empire and the Turkish Republic, 1839-1950, eds. Donald Quataert
and Eric J. Zürcher (London: Tauris Acedemic Studies, 1995), p.76.
289
social thoughts, the Unionists found guild consciousness useful to manipulate and mobilize
and therefore encouraged the organization of guild-like bodies. Beginning from February
1910 to the end of the War, the Unionists organized many workers in trade and artisans’
associations (esnaf cemiyetleri).780
By the early 1920s there were several labor organizations bearing the labels of isçi or
amele in their names. Beynelmilel Đsçiler Đttihadı (founded principally by Greek and
Armenian workers) and Türkiye Đsçi Derneği (associated with the Workers’ and
Peasants’Party of Turkey) were two leading organizations inspired by the Bolshevik
Revolution. Another and more important organization was the Đstanbul Umum Amele Birliği
founded in 1922.781 It was influential first among tramway workers, but later gained a certain
standing among a certain number of trades. The documents produced by these organizations
reveal that the concepts of amele and isçi still were used interchangeably. However, workers
were equally aware that the ambiguity of the concept of amele hindered the possibility of
workers to advance their distinct interests and targets, and to improve their organizational
power.
This was explicitly expressed in the report which was prepared by the Amele Birliği
and presented to the chairmanship of the Đzmir Economic Congress of 1923. The report wrote
that since the meanings ascribed to the concepts of amele and esnaf were not clearly defined,
the authorities organized workers with shopkeepers and artisans in the same associations in
order to control this force and deprive them of the right to form independent syndicates
780 Ibid. The list of these associations is provided in Zafer Toprak, Türkiye’de Milli Đktisat (1908-1918) (Ankara:
Yurt Yayınları, 1982), pp. 401-402.
781 Erdal Yavuz, “The State of Industrial Workforce, 1923-1940,” in Workers and the Working Class in Ottoman
Empire and the Turkish Republic, 1839-1950, eds. Donald Quataert and Eric J. Zürcher (London: Tauris
Academic Studies, 1995), p. 102.
290
together with the right to strike.782 Despite the efforts of the Kemalists to control and guide
the workers’ group,783 workers managed to put forward their program and showed a spirit of
independence during the Congress. As the first article of their program, workers proposed to
designate male and female workers as isçi instead of the commonly used vague term of
amele.784
In contrast to the concept of amele, which was used as a very broad and general
category, usually in phrases like “fırın esnafı amelesi”, “tramvay amelesi” or “hamal
amelesi”785, including journeymen and masters, domestic and factory workers and sometimes
even agricultural workers, the term isçi slowly began to be used by journeymen and different
types of workers as a means of self-categorization. In using the word they tried to express
what they had in common across occupational and corporate distinctions in contrast to
employers.786 This occurred first in the radical and socialist organizations formed by workers
and intellectuals in the large cities. However, the meanings attached to the term isçi were
always contentious. During the 1930s the term was usually used to point to the poverty and
suffering of laboring people, rather than their role in the production process. In a series of
782 “Memleketimizde esnaf ve amele tabiri vazıhan ve kanunen tarif edilmemis olduğu için bu müphemiyetten
bil-istifade amelenin en büyük bir kısmının kontrolü ve esnaf namı altında cem ile inkisaf ve terakkilerine sed
çeken Sehremaneti’nin bu selahiyetinin ref’i ile ameleye grev yapmak salahiyet-i kanuniyesini haiz sendikalar
teskil etmesini müsaade etmek, yani hal-i hazırda mer’i-yül icra olan 19 Ağustos 325 (1909) tarihli Cemiyetler
Kanununu bu esas üzerinde tadil eylemek.” See, “Đstanbul Umum Amele Birliği’nin Türkiye Đktisat Kongresi’ne
Sunduğu Rapor,” in A. Gündüz Ökçün, Türkiye Đktisat Kongresi 1923 Đzmir: Haberler, Belgeler, Yorumlar
(Ankara: AÜSBF Yayınları, 1981), p. 165.
783 For example, they placed Aka Gündüz, who was not even a worker but a publicist who gained prominence
during the Young Turk era, at the head of the workers’ group.
784 For an analysis of workers’ program, see M. Sehmus Güzel, “Đktisat Kongreleri ve Toplumsal Siyaset,” in
Türkiye’de Đsçi Hareketi (Yazılar-Belgeler) (Đstanbul: Sosyalist Yayınlar, 1993), p. 125.
785 See Ökçün, p. 164.
786 According to Ahmad, the term patron had gained prominence among the workers employed in modern
sectors by the end of the war for designating bosses whose interests were in conflict with workers. Ahmad, “The
Development of Working-Class Consciousness”, p. 78.
291
interviews with workers from different industries and trades which was published in
Cumhuriyet a few months before the promulgation of the Labor Code in 1936, workers were
described as “those who barely make their living” (günü gününe yasayanlar). This phrase was
also the title of this series which was prepared by renowned socialist journalist Suad
Dervis.787 The title reflected not only the perception of middle class observers on workers, but
also the self-identification of workers with poverty.788 This was also in line with the
paternalist mood of the period in 1936 when discussions over the long-delayed Labor Code
were finally on the agenda of the parliament.789
However, the term amele did not disappear from the political vocabulary easily. Yet
the concept was redefined to include exclusively unskilled individual toilers without having a
qualified occupation, often to denote migrant workers whose real interests lay in agriculture,
not in modern sectors of the city. For instance, in 1937, Lütfi Erisçi wrote of the laborers who
came new to city to seek work as ameleler and of the districts that they sought for shelter as
amele mahalleleri.790 Even the socialist Sendika magazine described the strike of the Đzmir
dock workers as the strike of “liman ameleleri”.791 The magazine, on the other hand, was
careful about using the term isçi when reporting about more established segments of the
working class. However, the middle class observers and state authorities were still not so
much attentive about distinguishing between isçi and amele in their political vocabularies.
787 “Günü Gününe Yasayanlar” started on 3 April 1936, and was completed on 1 May 1936. See also Nadir Nadi,
“Günü Gününe Yasayanlarımızı Düsünelim,” Cumhuriyet, 1 May 1936.
788 See Özçelik, p. 148. The phrase was still in use in the early 1950s among some workers and unionists to
designate the position of workers in the society. See Kemal Sülker, ??
789 Barıs Alp Özden, “The 1936 Labor Code and the Problem of Reproduction of Labor in the Early Republican
Period”, unpublished paper.
790 Lütfi Erisçi, “Đstanbul’da Amele Mahalleleri,” Yeni Adam, vol.4, no.177 (20 May 1937), p.4.
791 “Đzmir Liman Amelesi Zam Talebinde Bulundular,” Sendika, no. 6 (5 October 1946).
292
During the negotiations over the 1947 budget of the Ministry of Labor in the parliament, for
example, most deputies used the terms isçi and amele in the same speech, sometimes for
denoting skilled and unskilled laborers separately, but often interchangeably.792
In the years following World War II, however, a significant transformation of the
political and social language in relation worker issues occured. By the mid-1950s, the term
amele was no longer in use in the political vocabulary. When the minister of labor Mümtaz
Tarhan used the term once during a speech at the National Assembly, this single act caused
many trade unions to protest him severely.793 In contrast to the word proletarian,794 which
most workers did not like to use for self-identification, the concepts of isçi and isçi sınıfı were
clearly established as positive terms of the emerging labor unions and their movement.
This transformation of the language of class was made possible and accompanied the
proliferation of unionization across many sectors of the workforce. In 1948 only 15 percent of
the workforce covered by the Labor Law was unionized. By the end of the decade, however,
about 35 percent of the workforce covered by the Labor Law had been enrolled in unions
which bore the name of Đsçi Sendikası. In absolute numbers, this means that the trade union
membership rose about six-fold, from 52,000 to 280,000. During the period, the number of
trade unions increased from 49 to 432.795 Even pop musicians had established a trade union in
1950. When the ministry of labor refused to recognize the union on the grounds that
792 “Bütçe Müzakereleri Dolayısiyle B. M. Meclisinde Đrad Edilen Söylevler,” Çalısma Dergisi, no. 14 (January
1947), pp. 51-65.
793 Đsçi Sesi, 3 March 1956
794 “Proletarian” was a dangerous word associated with class struggle and internationalism which was both hated
and forbidden by the regime. In a speech after the foundation of the Ministry of Labor, the first officer at this
post Sadi Irmak maintained that the ministry would attach utmost importance to preclude the development of the
feeling and condition of proletarianization among workers to keep them away from foreign ideologies and
guarantee the spread of national feelings. See Suat Seren, Çalısma Bakanlığı: Kurulusundan Bugüne Kadar
(Ankara: TC Ziraat Bankası Matbaası, 1947), p. 51.
795 Makal, Türkiye’de Çok Partili Dönemde Çalısma Đliskileri, p. 276.
293
musicians are not workers, the chairman Behçet Ölmeztürk argued that “we are workers using
our manual and intellectual labor. We are workers; because a drummer of a band first uses his
intellectual labor to manage the beat time, then he becomes worn out like a construction
worker who has trowelled all day long. The weariness of fingers of a pianist is the outcome of
his manual effort. We have the right to organize a union. We belong to the working class. We
have many problems.”796
The period under consideration also witnessed the flourishing of a labor media
movement. Yüksel Akkaya counts 45 newspapers and journals published either by trade
unions or by private entrepreneurs for working class readers in the 1946-1960 period. The
geographical distribution of these newspapers reflected the distribution of the wage earning
urban working class across the country. Most of these newspapers were short-lived. 39
percent of them had been published for less than one year. Only 26 percent survived the
financial and managerial difficulties and lived more than two years.797 Nevertheless, the
importance attached to the media by workers was well represented by the fact that so many
newspapers owned by trade unions began publishing in this period. They found an audience
by covering recent news from unions and workplaces, reporting governmental policies on
labor and trade unions, and publishing letters and any kind of information sent by workers. It
appears that they performed a remarkable mission of disseminating the key ideas of the
workers’ discourse, which surely were understood by workers and adapted by them according
to their particular needs and circumstances.
796 “Hafif Batı Musikisi Mensupları Sendikası,” Gece Postası, 23 July 1951.
797 Yüksel Akkaya, “Türkiye’de Erken Dönem Sendikal Basın: 1946-1960,” in Cumhuriyet’in Hamalları: Đsçiler
(Đstanbul: Yordam Yayınları, 2010), pp. 141-142. The number of labor and union newspapers and journals was
probably more than Akkaya could detect. For example Akkaya writes that even the city accommodated a huge
working class population he is surprised to see that Kayseri workers/unions did not publish any newspapers or
journals during the period. However, Gayret, which was the official publishing organ of the Kayseri Textile
Industry Workers’ Union, was published throughout the 1950s starting from 1951.
294
For established workers who called themselves isçi, the concept had lost its traditional
degrading connotation by the middle of the decade. Rather it had gained a forceful anticorporatist
and anti-particularistic connotation that expressed generalized claims for
recognition and equality.798 “We are far away from the times when workers were degraded,”
wrote one worker in 1960: “Until yesterday one might find workers who denied that they
were workers. These people used to sell their labor, yet identified themselves with other
categories. Why? Because they undervalued workers and they thought it was shameful to
labor. But now we have arrived at a consciousness that makes one feel grateful to be a
worker.”799
The writer continues the article by defining the concept of worker as an inclusive
concept which covers the great part of the society under the umbrella of one class:
The head cook is a worker. Those who pay insurance premiums are workers. Those
who plough others’ land with their means of production are workers. The night
watchmen are workers. The variety artist is a worker for ‘he is made to repeat the
movements that are trained to him’. The janitor, the furnace stoker, the telephone
operator, the cashier, the storekeeper, the journeyman, the checker are all workers.
Whether one is worker could not be understood by regarding the official post or
label of his work. It could be understood by the content of his work determined by
labor contract… According to recent figures the number of workers is on the
average 541,934. During the high season the number rose highest to 618,775... If
the laws did not recognize a distinction among the populations of different urban
areas, include all the workers who perform intellectual labor, and cover all the
employees of agricultural sector, then this figure would rise at least to 17 million.
In one sense we are all workers and we are all laboring.”800
798 For a similar line of argument see Yiğit Akın, “The Dynamics of Working-Class Politics in Early Republican
Turkey: Language, Identity and Experience,” International Review of Social History, no. 54, Supplement 17
(2009), pp. 173-174.
799 Cahit Umut, “Hepimiz Đsçiyiz…” Đsçinin Sesi, 3 October 1960.
800 Ibid. “(A)sçıbasılar isçidir. Kendilerinden sigorta primi kesilenler isçidir. Kendi aracı ile baskasının toprağını
çeken kisi de isçidir. Gece bekçisi isçidir. Daktilo isçidir. Varyete artisti “öğrendiği belli figürleri ekrar etmeğe
alısmıs” olduğundan isçidir. Odacı, kaloriferci, santral memuru, muamele memuru, veznedar, ustabası, ambar
memuru, kontrolcü isçidir… Bir kimsenin isçi olup olmadığı memuriyetine ve yaptığı isin adına bakılarak
kararlastırılamaz. Hizmet akdi sebebiyle yaptığı isin mahiyetine bakılır… Son rakamlara gore isçi sayılanların
adedi ortalama 541.934’tür. En yüksek rakamı bulan ayda isçi sayısı 618.775 olmustur… Eğer kanunlar sehir
295
This recognition of class as an inclusive category against the official definition of the
term in the labor law was especially prevalent among workers of some particular industries.
Among them printers are worth mentioning. From the late nineteenth century on, printers
possessed certain unique characteristics that separated them from other workers. Their places
of work were generally in the urban center and their daily work brought many of them into
close contact with journalists and writers; that is to say, with the printed world of ideas. The
nature of their work required them to be highly skilled and literate. They prided themselves on
their long organizational history which had started with the foundation of the Ottoman
Association of Typesetters (Mürettibin-i Osmani Cemiyeti) in 1908. To emphasize this
continuity, for example, the Đstanbul Print Operators’ Trade Union celebrated the 1954
Congress as the 42. congress of the union.801 On the other hand, they saw themselves as part
of the greater working class family as they worked in production with their hands and with
skills acquired through long years of apprenticeship and on-the-job practice.802 They strictly
rejected a narrow craft unionism which separated typesetters from press operators. As a
matter of fact, they were the primary group that emphasized the unity of workers as a class.803
nüfusu ayrımı yapmasa ve fikir isçilerinin hepsini gözetse tarım iskoluda çalısanları da kanun karuyuculuğu
altına alsa isçi sayısı en az 17 milyonu bulur. Bir deyime gore hepimiz isçiyiz ve çalısmaktayız.”
801 “Sendikamızın 42’nci Kongresi Yapıldı,” Đsçi Sesi, 24 April 1954; “Sendikamızın Bir Senelik Faaliyeti,” Đsçi
Sesi, 8 May 1954. For Mürettibini Osmaniye Cemiyeti, see also M. Seyhmus Güzel, Türkiye’de Đsçi Hareketi, p.
85.
802 Their position in the labor process enabled printers both in Germany and Russia to view themselves through
the prism of class. In both countries they were among the first working class communities to form strong
associations. For Germany, see Jürgen Kocka, “Problems of Working-Class Formation in Germany: The Early
Years, 1800-1875” in Ira Katznelson and Aristide R. Zolberg (eds.), Working-Class Formation, p. 326. For
Russia, see Mark D. Steinberg, “Vanguard Workers and the Morality of Class,” in Lewis. H. Siegelbaum and
Ronald G. Sunny (eds.), Making Workers’ Soviet.
803 Hakkı Kezer, “Fikir Đsçileri ve Biz,” Đsçi Sesi, 26 Mart 1955.
296
Concepts of the social and political language reflect perceptions of the underlying
experiences of those who use them in class specific ways. From the 1920s to the 1950s were
the crucial decades in which the redefinition of the concept of class took place. It seems that
the late 1940s and early 1950s witnessed the development of a growing awareness of working
people reflected in the self assertion of the concept of class in the political vocabulary adopted
by the workers themselves, though the different values attached to what they called isçi.
Working Class Collective Action: Strikes
There has been a tendency in the Ottoman and republican Turkish labor historiography
to focus primarily on working class activism in the form of strikes as a demonstration of class
consciousness. As Atabaki and Brockett argue this characteristic of labor historiography
follows the agenda of what scholars refer to as “the old labor history,” which puts too much
emphasis on the institutional aspects of labor and labor militancy in its relation with the
state.804 The classical examples of labor history in Turkey touch briefly on the class formation
in the 1950s, for, it is argued, workers and their unions were reluctant to engage in collective
actions, especially in the form of strikes, in a period which was characterized by the
authoritarian political regime of the DP.805
A number of recent studies, which claim to be revisionist in that sense, aim to show
that workers exhibited dispositions to engage in strikes during the period.806 These studies are
804 Touraj Atabaki and Gavin D. Brockett, “Ottoman and Republican Turkish Labour History: An Introduction,”
International Review of Social History, no. 54, Supplement 17 (2009), pp. 7-8.
805 See for example Y. N. Rozaliyev, Türkiye Sanayi Proleteryası (Đstanbul: Yar Yayınları, 1978); M. Sehmus
Güzel, Türkiye’de Đsçi Hareketi, 1908-1984; Yıldırım Koç, Türkiye Đsçi Sınıfı ve Sendikacılık Hareketi.
806 Yüksel Akkaya, “Demokrat Parti Döneminde Grevler,” in Cumhuriyet’in Hamalları: Đsçiler (Đstanbul:
Yordam Kitap, 2010); Ahmet Makal, “Türkiye’de 1946-1960 Dönemindeki Grev Tartısmaları ve Grevler
üzerine Bir Çözümleme Denemesi,” in Ameleden Đsçiye; Serafettin Pektas, “DP Döneminde Tarımdısı Alanlarda
297
important for they provide a partial inventory of strike incidents during the period. However,
since they focus interest on the quantity of strike actions, they fail to go beyond the
assumptions of the traditional paradigm and analyze the meaning and influence of strikes on
the formation of working class identity.
Since the present study aims to move beyond this paradigm and adopt aspects of the
new labor history, a little place has been reserved for strike actions during the period.
Moreover, the study of strikes during the period bears some difficulties which are not possible
to overcome in the present state of research. 807 For this very reason, the analysis below will
focus on one strike incident which made a visible impression on the language and selfidentification
of workers and had wide repercussions in the broader public.
Before moving further it is worth noting that workers responded in a wide variety of
ways to the changes the experienced in their daily lives during the period. They exhibited
dispositions to engage in many different forms of collective action. Campaigns for shorter
working day and for the right to strike, meetings, beard growing protests (sakal grevleri)808
testifies a broad spectrum of collective actions against the employers, the state and the
members of the working class itself. Yet the most characteristic form of collective action by
Çalısma Yasamının Düzenlenmesi” (Ph.D. diss., Marmara Üniversitesi Türkiyat Arastırmaları Enstitüsü, 2006),
pp. 247-255.
807 Every attempt to provide an inventory of strikes during the period is bound to be partial and incomplete.
Because the strikes were illegal actions there exists no statistical data about them recorded by state authorities or
trade unions. The only supply of materials for such an endeavor is newspaper reports which can not provide
information of all strike incidents. Moreover, in many cases it is hard to determine whether the case in question
is strike or lock-out. Because both of the acts were illegal when employers initated a lock-out they often claimed
that the incident was a strike. Conversely, in many cases workers denied to have initiated a strike and argued that
the employer closed the establishment in order to gain concessions from employees.
808 According to one source first sakal grevi was initiated by the Hotel, Restaurant, and Entertainment Venue
Workers’ Trade Union in 1952 to protest the rejection of the draft bill in the paliament which extended the scope
of Labor Law to cover all the workplaces. See Evren Balta et al., 1947’den 1997’ye 50 Yıllık Emek, 50 Yıllık
Mücadele Deneyimi: Otel, Lokanta, Eğlence Yerleri Đsçilerinin Sendikal Mücadele Tarihi (Ankara: OLEYĐS,
1997), p. 39. The beard growing protest pervaded among thousand of workers throughout the country in 1961.
See “Sakal Bırakma Eylemi,” in Türkiye Sendikacılık Ansiklopedisi III, p. 562.
298
workers was the strike. Strikes were certainly not unknown prior to the period. In 1908 and
during the armistice period workers initiated, conducted and concluded many strikes. In the
authoritarian atmosphere of the early republican period, however, workers abstained from
engaging in strikes and strike-like actions. In prohibiting strikes, the Labor Code of 1936 was
to a large extent merely sanctioning the then existing position. Sehmus Güzel could discover
only seven strikes between 1937 and 1950.809
The Law on Trade Unions in 1947 brought a new deterrent in that respect: the
incitement to strike. If a member of the administrative committee of a union or a staff
responsible for the administration of the union was involved in such unlawful acts, then the
union also was penalized. Furthermore, due to their weak monetary sources, trade unions had
limited financial funds to offer the workers on strike. Unions could barely collect 30 percent
of the membership fees during the period since there was not a check-off system to cut
automatically the union membership fee from the salary of workers. It was not until the 1960s
that unions began to accumulate permanent strike funds. Therefore, strikes required a strong
sense of solidarity among workers participating in them. The workers who participated in
strike had to be prepared to make substantial sacrifices and take great risks. They also faced
the possibility of not being hired after a strike was terminated. Additionally, benefits like
higher wages, which strikers sought more primarily, were collective goods that would accrue
to workers who did not make such sacrifices as much as those did and unions did not have the
authority to levy sanctions against strikebreakers. These limitations help to explain the general
characteristics of the strikes during the period: they were short-term actions (often no more
than two or three days); they were spontaneous; they were not supported by trade unions; and
809 Güzel, Türkiye Đsçi Hareketi, pp. 174-175.
299
their reach to the public was limited. In this sense, the Đzmir dock workers’ strike in 1954 was
exceptional.
The dock workers in Đzmir had a long history of resistance to the general level of
wages in the area and their specific condition of employment.810 During the republican period
the first strike at the docks took place in 1940 brought about by increased organization, rising
prices and the worsening employment conditions. The second strike of dock workers, to our
knowledge, came after the end of World War II, in October 1946. During September 1946
workers submitted demands for 5-7 liras a day to the dock administration. A counter offer was
made, but not accepted by the workers.811 The demands were backed up by a short-term strike
action on 8 October. There then followed a lengthy correspondence between the stevedoring
contractor (who argued that no significant wage increase was possible) and the dock
administration (who insisted that an increase should be made to end workers’ resistance). In
the end, their demands were satisfied and workers got back to work.812
In 1950 another “one day strike” broke out at the Đzmir dock which was also settled by
the recognition of workers’ demands. Dock workers occupied a relatively important position
in the labor process in the docks. Their labor was central to all work operations in landing and
shipping cargo. Despite the centrality of their labor in the structure of transport, dock workers
were low paid and worked and lived in poor conditions.
Although they achieved a wage increase in 1950, the unrest of the Đzmir dock workers
magnified in the same year when stevedoring was subcontracted to a private concern of
810 For a brief account of struggles of Đzmir dock workers during the Ottoman period see Engin Berber, “Đkinci
Mesrutiyet Döneminde Domino Etkisi Yapan Bir Eylem: Đzmir Liman Đsçileri,” European Journal of Turkish
Studies [Online], no. 11 (2010). Available at http://ejts.revues.org/index4303.html
811 “Đzmir Liman Amelesi Zam Talebinde Bulundular,” Sendika, no. 6 (5 October 1946).
812 Kemal Sülker, “Cumhuriyet Döneminde Đsçi Hareketleri,” in Cumhuriyet Dönemi Türkiye Ansiklopedisi, vol.
7 (Đstanbul: Đletisim Yayınları, 1985), p. 1845.
300
Osman Gürkan. These workers were employed on average 2-3 days a week because of
fluctuations in shipping, but also because the employer wished to maintain a supply of labor
at a level equal to that of the maximum demand which could be made under peak conditions.
As in all ports it was in the company’s interest to maintain a reserve army of labor over
average daily requirements.813 The pressure on wage rates was maintained by this reserve
which encouraged competition among workers for vacancies every day. In the early 1950s,
the average earnings of workers fluctuated around 20-25 liras a week.814
The dispute arose over the workers’ objections to renewal of a contract between the
Turkish Maritime Bank, the government-owned port authority, and the stevedoring concern of
Osman Gürkan in 1954. Led by the Đzmir Dockworkers Trade Union, more than 600 workers
went on strike on 15 July 1954. Hundreds of cabbies and truck workers in the wharves were
unable to work and the docks came to a standstill. The dock workers gathered around the
Maritime Bank quietly discussing their grievances and listening to speeches by their
leaders.815 The workers asserted that their earnings had fallen by 60 percent after the renewal
of the contract with Gürkan’s company and demanded that the dock workers again be
employed directly by the Maritime Bank and receive higher wages and assurance of steadier
work.816
813 The casual labor system was universally prevalent in seaports. See Klaus Weinhauer, “Labour Market, Work
Mentality and Syndicalism: Dock Labour in the United States and Hamburg, 1900–1950s,” International Review
of Social History, vol. 42, no. 2 (August 1992); David Hemson, “Dock Workers, Labour Circulation and Class
Struggles in Durban, 1940-59,” Journal of Southern African Studies, vol. 4, no. 1 (October 1977).
814 Doğan Duman, “1954 Đzmir Liman Đsçileri Grevi,” Toplumsal Tarih, no. 16 (April 1995), p. 48; “Türkiye’de
Đlk Grev,” Forum, vol. 1, no. 9 (1 August 1954).
815 “Đzmir Limanındaki Grev Hadisesi”, Aksam, 16 July 1954; “Đzmir Liman Ameleleri Đse Baslamadılar”,
Aksam, 17 July 1954.
816 “Đzmir’de 600 Deniz Đsçisi Dün Greve Tesebbüs Etti,” Milliyet, 16 July 1954.
301
The strike came under the control of the Đzmir Dockworkers’ Trade Union and worker
representatives, most of whom were immigrants from Balkan countries. On the day that the
strike began, 24 leaders were arrested, and let out of the prison on the following day probably
on the condition that they urge the workers return the work. Since a strike in the harbor
effected the strategic shipping situation the government responded promptly and ordered
troops to the docks and indicated it would take forcible steps if the stoppage continued. But
the strike continued on the next day when the workers who came to the dock saw that Osman
Gürkan was still on duty.817
On the sixth day, Ekmel Önbulak, the Ministry of Labor General Director in Charge of
Trade Unions, and the mayor of Đzmir, chaired a meeting of employer and worker
representatives and made it clear that if the strike continued the authorities were prepared to
make use of a reserve supply of dock labor to be obtained by breaking organized action and
by recruiting those not then employed from the area. The workers agreed to get back to work
since all of their leaders had been arrested.818 Although they had been able to achieve only a
small wage increase, dock workers had successfully continued a strike for six days under the
heavy pressure of employers and state authorities.819
The police arrested Abdullah Zobu, president of the Đzmir Dockworkers Trade Union
and two other unionist leaders. The three leaders were released by Đzmir’s first Court of the
Peace shortly after they were taken into custody for the first time.820 They were arrested again
almost immediately and held until mid-August. 558 dock union members stood trial on
charges of having staged Turkey’s largest labor strike. The leaders faced up to 32 months in
817 “Đzmir’de Tasıt Đsçilerinin Grevi Dün de Devam Etti,” Milliyet, 17 July 1954.
818 “Đzmir’de Grev Yapan Đsçilerin Bir Kısmı Dün isbası Yaptı,” Milliyet, 20 July 1954.
819 “Đzmir Liman Đsçilerinin Grevi Sona Erdi,” Đsçi Sesi, 24 July 1954.
820 “Đzmir Liman Đsçilerinin Grevi,” Aksam, 18 July 1954.
302
prison if they were convicted of having attempted to exert pressure on port authorities for
higher wages and steadier work for dock workers. The rank-and-file members were liable to
six months imprisonment and a fine of 100 liras (equivalent to about a month’s work for
workers).821Đzmir dock workers’ strike coincided with other strike incidents in Santral
Mensucat mill and the Hilton hotel. The police and the Ministry of Internal Affairs were
suspicious about whether these events were related and part of a communist provocation. That
many of the leaders of dock workers were immigrants from Romania, Bulgaria and Crimea
added to their fears of an organized conspiracy.822 In the meantime the government closed the
Đzmir Dock Workers Trade Union and the smaller Alsancak Coal and Dockworkers Trade
Union.823
The trial proceeded slowly as the defendants were hauled into court for interrogation in
groups of fifty.824 Despite the ongoing trial of dock workers in Đzmir, a further strike broke
out exactly one year after the 1954 strike. Workers asserted that their wages were still low and
demanded to be paid a wage which would enable workers and their families to live under
urban conditions. Some workers told that they did not even sleep with their wives for they
were afraid of having children under the poor conditions in which they were made to live.825
On the second day of the strike, the Maritime Bank announced that it had abrogated the
contract with the private concern of Osman Gürkan and promised that the workers would
821 “Turkey Tries 556 for Strike Action,” New York Times, 29 December 1954.
822 Duman, p. 50; “Đzmir’deki Grev Dün Sona Erdi,” Milliyet, 21 July 1954.
823 “Đzmir Grevi Tahkikatı,” Aksam, 23 July, 1954; “Đzmir’de Dün Đki Sendika Kapatıldı,” Milliyet, 23 July 1954.
824 “Đzmirde Grev Yapan 600 Liman Đsçisinin durusması,” Đsçi Sesi, 2 October, 1954.
825 Đbrahim Güzelce, “Đzmir Grevcileri,” Forum, vol. 3, no. 33 (1 August 1955), p. 17.
303
receive a wage increase. Upon the parole of Maritime Bank authorities the workers returned
to the docks.826
The prominence of the Đzmir dock workers’ strike lay in its broader repercussions in
public. The newspapers followed the developments with deep concern and reported on the
latest developments on the front pages. No strike before had attracted the interest of public
opinion to that degree. The influential Forum magazine welcomed this act as “the first strike
in Turkey” and prepared many reports about it. According to Forum editors the ban on strikes
and organized work stoppages had received a severe blow by this single act of the Đzmir
dockers in the face of sympathy expressed in the media:
In the studies which will be made in the future on the movements and the lives of
Turkish workers, there is no doubt that the year 1954 will be marked as the
beginning of a new era. This act can be conceived as an inception of the idea of a
prospective Labor Party in Turkey … For the first time in his history the Turkish
worker has witnessed the success of a strike attempt performed in solidarity for the
sake of a common cause.
The factual side of the Đzmir strike is not very important. As far as we are informed
by the newspapers, the dock workers walked out in protest after having seen that
their demands for a wage increase were not met. The newly recruited workers who
had been brought to the docks to replace the strikers also participated in the strike
since they found the wages too low. Although the strike as an incident was a
concern for only a small portion of the organized working masses, the events
occupied the headlines of the top daily newspapers and the public opinion followed
the strike with the greatest interest from cover to cover. In the end, the authorities
recognized workers’ claims, and workers got back to work.
The Đzmir workers have inflicted a heavy blow on the ban on strikes which inhibits
the improvement of organized labor relations as one important fundamental of a
democratic regime, and reminded the statesmen that there is an important question
about labor to think about. 827
826 Makal, “Türkiye’de 1946-1960 Dönemindeki Grev Tartısmaları ve Grevler üzerine Bir Çözümleme
Denemesi”, p. 296.
827 “Đlerde Türk isçi hayatı ve hareketleri hakkında yazılacak eserlerde, 1954 senesi hiç süphe yok bir devir
baslangıcı olarak kabul edilecektir. Bu hareket Türkiye’de müstakbel Đsçi Partisi fikrinin br baslangıcı olarak
kabul edilecektir.
Đzmir’deki grevin hadise cephesi o kadar mühim değildir. Gazetelerden öğrendiğimize göre liman isçisi
ücretlerinin arttırılması için yaptıkları talebin yerine getirilmediğini görünce toplu olarak çalısmayı bırakmıstır.
304
In a later issue, Forum editors wrote that the Đzmir strike once more revealed that the
burden of economic development always had been placed on the shoulders of “the weak
classes” while the rewards of growth has gone exclusively to bosses.828
The New York Times published two extensive reports on the strike incident and noticed
that although both major parties had promised the right to strike, the present regime had failed
to carry out the pledge since 1950.829 The strike forged class solidarity on both the national
and international levels. The American Federation of Labor urged Turkey to call off the trial
of the Đzmir dock workers on charges of having engaged in a strike on 29 December 1954.830
In support of the dock workers, the Đstanbul Trade Unions Alliance raised a solidarity fund
while the legal advisor of Đstanbul Press Technicians Trade Union acted as lawyer for the
dockworkers in Đzmir.
Institutions and Ideological Influences
The institutionalization of trade unions and multi-party political system after World
War II had significant influence on class dispositions and politics. A number of trade unions
were established under the influence of two socialist parties (The Socialist Labor and Peasant
Yerlerine alınmak istenen yeni isçiler bile mevcut ücret seviyesini kifayetsiz bulmuslar ve onlar da grevcilere
katılmıslardır. Hadise olarak bu grev, çalısan ve teskilatlı isçi kütlesinin gayet cüz’i bir nisbetini ilgilendirdiği
halde, bu hadise günlü baslıca gazetelerimizin bas sahifelerinde en önemli yerleri isgal etmis ve halk efkarı bu
grevi basından sonuna kadar ilgi ile takip etmistir. Neticede isçilerin talebi kabul edilmis ve isçiler çalısmaya
baslamıstır.
Đzmir isçisi demokratik nizamın en mühim temellerinden birini veren teskilatlı is müessesinin inkisafını önliyen
grev yasağına, bu son hareketiyle önemli bir darbe indirmis ve devlet adamlarına is ve isçi meseleleri ile ilgili
üzerinde ciddi bir surette düsünülecek bir mesele bulunduğunu hatırlatmıstır.” “Türkiye’de Đlk Grev,” Forum,
vol. 1, no. 9 (1 August 1954).
828 “Gene Grev Hakkına Dair,” Forum, vol. 3, no. 33 (1 August 1955), p. 6.
829 “Turkey Tries 556 for Strike Action,” New York Times, 29 December 1954.
830 “A.F.L. Urge Turkey to Release Dockers,” New York Times, 30 December 1954; “Đzmir Grevi Hakkında,”
Forum, vol. 2, no. 20 (15 January 1955).
305
Party of Turkey and The Socialist Party of Turkey) as soon as the ban on the foundation of
class based associations was lifted from the Associations Law in 1946. The wave of
unionization observed by contemporaries was beyond the estimations of the then ruling party,
RPP. Having seen that the increasing number of workers were joining unions controlled by
socialists, the government determined to limit the relative liberty provided by the 1946
changes in the Associations Law within new borders. The “1946 unions” survived only a few
months and were closed together with the socialist political organizations with which they
were associated on 16 December 1946.831
By the time the RPP had already started drafting a new law to regulate the unionization
movement. The Workers’ and Employers’ Trade Unions and Confederations Law (No. 5018)
was ratified in the parliament in 20 February 1947. This law is an important piece of
legislation since it provided the social philosophy and conceptual baggage of the ruling party
and the general public opinion with respect to workers and labor issues. The governing party
did not seem to be unreserved or unequivocal about this legislation, but the regulation it
composed was well designed to serve their purposes. The law cited nationalism as a legal
quality of Turkish trade unions. As reflected in parliamentary debates, it was considered to be
the most important principle that determined the character of the Trade Unions Law.
According to the fifth article of the law, trade unions were “national institutions” and
“could not act against nationalism and national interests.” Thus the deep-rooted Kemalist
hatred of internationalism was reflected clearly in the law. The reason of the law clarified
what was meant by nationalism and national interests as follows: “Parallel to the nationalist
character of our regime, the draft stated that the trade unions were national institutions, they
831 For a comprehensive discussion of the trade union model proposed by Socialist Labor and Peasant Party of
Turkey in 1946, see Zafer Toprak, “1946 Sendikacılığı: Sendika Gazetesi, Đsçi Sendikaları Birlikleri ve Đsçi
Kulüpleri,” Toplumsal Tarih, vol. 6, no. 31 (July 1996).
306
would perform their duties with a nationalist mentality, and they cannot bear international
traits.”832 Indeed the law did not ban the possibility of membership in international
organizations altogether, but conditioned it to governmental permission. Based on this clear
statement in the law, neither the RPP nor the DP governments would permit the membership
of trade unions in international organizations and both always would get involved in the
selection of worker delegates to the ILO conferences.833
However, the limits and content of the principle of nationalism were much narrower
than might seem at first sight. 834 The term “national interest” meant the opposite to the term
“class interest” when mentioned with respect to workers. As argued by Yüksel Akkaya,
nationalism took over the content of populism in the post war period and was manipulated
frequently for ideologically subordinating workers. The notions of nationalism and national
interests became buzzwords in debates concerning the right to strike.835 During the
parliamentary debates on the issue in the late 1940s and 1950s, engaging in strike action
frequently was condemned as proof of non-national behavior. 836 As early as 1947 the minister
of labor Sadi Irmak said in a public statement that “no genuine Turkish worker has ever
demanded the right to strike to this date.”837
832 Doğan, p. 96.
833 The first frictions between Türk-Đs and the DP was concerning the Türk-Đs’s application for membership in
the International Confedaration of Free Trade Unions. The DP rejected the recurrent attempts of Türk-Đs for
becoming a member of this international organization. See Kemal Sülker, Đki Konfederasyon: Türk-Đs ve DĐSK
(Đstanbul Koza Matbaası, 1976), p. 50-56.
834 Doğan, p. 97.
835 Yüksel Akkaya, “Korporatizmden Sendikal Đdeolojiye, Milliyetçilik ve Đsçi Sınıfı,” in Modern Türkiye’de
Siyasi Düsünce: Milliyetçilik, ed. Tanıl Bora (Đstanbul: Đletisim Yayınları, 2001), p. 833-834.
836 See Mesut Gülmez, Meclislerde Đsçi Sorunu ve Sendikal Haklar (Ankara: Öteki Yayınevi, 1995).
837 “Türk Sendikaları”, Ulus, 22 February 1947.
307
In early 1950, the ministry of labor undersecretary Fuat Erciyas reiterated this
approach by saying that “those who demand the acknowledgement of the right to strike are
not Turks.”838 The DP promised to grant that right to workers during its oppositional years
before 1950. However, even then the Democrat leaders stipulated that if the right to strike
were granted to workers, they should use it “within the limits of the concept of national
interest.”839As is well known, the DP would abandon its pro-strike policy once it came to
power in 1950. In the course of the 1950s the DP would develop a strong enmity to demands
of strike and frequently associated such demands with communist propaganda.840
The first minister of labor, Sadi Irmak, wrote in a later article published in Hürbilek
that the Turkish social legislation was based on the close partnership of state, employers and
workers to avoid the evils of class struggle and in the service of national interests.841 Irmak
repeated and clarified this theme in a speech delivered right after the promulgation of the
trade unions law:
This law is introduced in order to protect Turkish workers, who have a nationalist
consciousness and ideals of independence, from the harmful tendencies and to keep
those associations away from any kind of political currents since their mission is to
serve the profitability of industry. The final goal is to provide these associations with
better equipment to increase cooperation between the state and these associations
which are beneficial to the national and professional interests.842
838 Kemal Sülker, Türkiye’de Grev Hakkı ve Grevler (Đstanbul: Tüstav Yayınları, 2004), p. 65. These words of
Erciyas were harshly responded to by the trade unions.
839 Akkaya, “Korporatizmden Sendikal Đdeolojiye”, p. 834.
840 See the discussions between DP and RPP deputies over the issue provided in TBMM Tutanak Dergisi, term
11, vol. 7, 26 February 1959.
841 Sadi Irmak, “Đsçi Sendikaları,” no. 16, Hürbilek, (31 July 1948).
842 Koç, Türk-Đs Tarihinden Portreler, p. 42. See also Suat Seren, Çalısma Bakanlığı: Kurulusundan Bugüne
Kadar (Ankara: TC Ziraat Bankası Matbaası, 1947), p.
308
In another speech, Irmak maintained that the national type of trade unions which gave
the spirit to the Trade Unions Law “are free unions which defend the interests of parties
within the limits of common good together with the state.”843 The theme of partnership or
cooperation among national institutions as against any possibility of class struggle which was
repeated over and over by Irmak and other deputies revealed that for the majority of the
concerned public, there was no contradiction between the emergence of trade unions and the
solidarist social philosophy.844
According to the law, another important trait of the new trade unions would be nonpartisanship.
The law stated that while the members and directors of trade unions could get
involved in politics individually, organizations could not perform political acts as a body. In
case of violation of this rule, Article 5 wrote, the competent court could rule to suspend the
activity of the convicted trade union from three months to a year or rule its permanent closure.
Another article stipulated that the administrative control over the unions would be performed
through the Ministry of Labor.845 Indeed this provision of the law was quite abstract and
enabled the governments to restrict trade union activities at will. In practice both the
Republicans in the late 1940s, and their heir in the 1950s took advantage of this abstract
provision and punished the trade unions which seemed to be dissident while supporting the
political involvement of pro-government unions during the elections. The fines gathered from
punished workers when they damaged a machine or for any other reason were gathered in a
fund at the Ministry of Labor and then they were distributed to the pro-government trade
843 Quoted in Akkaya, “Korporatizmden Sendikal Đdeolojiye”, p. 834.
844 Cemil Koçak, “1940’ların Đkinci Yarısında Sosyal Politika: Devlet, Sınıflar, Partiler ve Dayanısmacı/
Vesayetçi Đdeoloji,” in Osmanlı’dan Cumhuriyete (Đstanbul: Tarih Vakfı, 1993).
845 Doğan, p. 118.
309
unions and Türk-Đs.846 This procedure was vital for the survival of Türk-Đs, but also
instrumental in guaranteeing the loyalty of unionists to the party.
Especially in the 1950s, the DP used the clause which provided the government with
the authority of administrative control over trade unions more than once to close unions and
regional associations of unions which were not controlled by the party.847 In 1957 nine
regional associations of unions and federations were closed by the government on the grounds
that they were involved in political activities and that they had established links with the
political opposition.848 In a similar vein, the government tried to prevent a series of
conferences held by a group reformist scholars from the Đstanbul University Institute of
Economics and Sociology with the participation of trade unionists.849 These conferences were
highly effective among the unionist milieu and the papers presented there were published
annually as a book. On many occasions the Democrat minister of labor, Mümtaz Tarhan,
threatened the unionists not to allow them to attend Social Policy Conferences since the
hidden agenda of these conferences, he argued, was to inject politics to the trade unions. He
even implied that socialist ideas were agitated in these conferences. However, what
essentially worried the Minister of Labor was not the socialist propaganda of the scholars,
which was not the real intention of conferences in any sense, but more importantly that the
conferences provided an independent forum between union leaders and intellectuals which
took place out of the reach of the government.850 When the issue was brought onto the agenda
846 Yirmibesoğlu, p. 80.
847 See Sülker, Türkiye Sendikacılık Tarihi.
848 TBMM Tutanak Dergisi, term 11, session 1, 18 February 1957, p. 169; “Sendika Birliklerinin Kapatılısı ve
Muhalefet”, Cumhuriyet, 10 May 1957.
849 “Türk -Đs’in Hükümetle Olan Münasebetleri ve Đsmail Đnan,” Gece Postası, 7 April 1956.
850 “Đstanbul Üniversitesi Đktisat Fakültesine bağlı Đktisat ve Đçtimaiyat Enstitüsünün isçiler için bazı
vilayetlerimizde konferanslar tertip ettiğini, konferans yeri olarak isçi veya sendika lokallerinin tercih edildiğini
310
of the National Assembly, Mümtaz Tarhan repeated his opinion about the conferences and
even asserted that Orhan Tuna promoted revolutionary methods of Karl Marx in these
conferences.851
It is a well known fact that another influence on trade unionism in Turkey came from
US trade unionism. Indeed, American unionists’ interest in Turkey that started in the early
1950s continued increasingly in the 1960s. In the 1950s, the DP rule did not allow Türk-Đs to
become a member of the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU) in 1952
and restricted the Turkish trade unions’ international relations severely. Against all
difficulties, the Turkish and US trade unionists corresponded even in the early 1950s.852 By
the middle of that decade, intensive relations were established between Türk-Đs and AFL-CIO.
The US trade unionists including George Meany, Jay Lovestone and Irvin Brown, who were
AFL-CIO’s major figures and played crucial role in terms of US foreign policy during the
gazetelerde okudum. Üniversitelerin kendi salonlarında serbest konferanslar vermeleri yadırganacak bir keyfiyet
telakki edilemese de bu seri konferansların isçi muhitlerinde kapalı olarak yapılması ve isçiden baska hiçbir
dinleyici, hatta alakalı Vekalet mütehassıslarından hiç kimsenin davet edilmemis olmaması ve hele ilim enstitüsü
altında ilmi bir hüviyeti, hatta ilk mektep tahsili dahi olmayan bazı zevatın da konferansçı seçilmis bulunması
dikkatimizden uzak kalmamıstır. Đsçi ve sendikacı eğitimi mevzuu Çalısma Vekaletinin vazifeleri cümlesinden
olduğuna göre bir ilim enstitüsünün bu vekalete ait bir vazifeyi üzerine alması gayretinin ne gibi maksatlara
matuf olduğunu kestirmeye imkan yoktur… Ellerinde sosyal adaletin bayrağını tasıyanların simdiye kadar
günlük ve isçi gazetelerindeki basmakaleleri, gazetelerde yazdıkları, seminer ve kürsülerde söyledikleri birer
birer dökülür saçılırsa bu insanların gizli maksatlarının, maskeli yaygaralarının kökünün nerede olduğunu, bu
zakkum ağacının nereden sulandığını anlamayacak tek Türk kalmayacaktır.” “Sendikalara Siyaset Sokulmak
Đsteniyor”, Gece Postası, 20 March 1957.
851 For the parliamentary discussions between Mümtaz Tarhan and RPP deputy Turhan Günes, see TBMM
Tutanak Dergisi, term 10, session 64, vol. 19, 6 May 1957, pp. 17-26.
852 See Aziz Çelik, “Vesayet Mektupları: 1950 ve 60’lı Yıllarda Türk ve ABD Sendikacıları Arasındaki
Yazısmalar,” Çalısma ve Toplum, no. 25 (2010/2). The correspondences provide significant clues concerning the
influence of American trade unionism on union leaders in Turkey. These letters show that the relations between
Turkish and US trade unionists were not established on equal terms and Turkish trade unionists were
subordinated to their US counterparts.
311
cold war, made frequent visits to the country to talk to Turkish union leaders as well as to
government authorities and to attend trade union conferences.853
The widely circulated claims that Türk-Đs had been founded under the suggestions and
auspices of American authorities do not seem to be based on any good reason.854 The sharp
increase in the number of trade unions and federations after 1947 reveals that a tendency
towards a wider institutional association already had started before 1952. According to Sülker
the need to form a central structure had increased in the early years of the decade due to the
rise in the unionist organization. It was Sülker himself who had given the confederation its
name.855 Sülker also claimed that the financial aid offered by Irwing Brown during the
preparations of the establishment of the confederation was refused right away and Türk-Đs was
founded by its own means. Koç also writes that Türk-Đs was the natural result of the
unification process of the trade unions that were born and grew between 1947 and 1952. It
was regarded as a necessary step to enhance the organizational power of workers by the union
activists.856
However, once Türk-Đs was founded on 6 April 1952, the relations between the
American and Turkish unionists became more intensive. Many Türk-Đs leaders and unionists
were invited to the United States for training purposes. Moreover, USAĐD made generous
financial contributions to Türk-Đs, which were critical of the confederation because of the
financial frailty of the unions during the 1950s.
853 Ibid. See also Kenan Öztürk, Amerikan Sendikacılığı ve Türkiye Đle Đlk Đliskiler: AFL-CIO’nun Avrupa
Temsilcisi Irwing Brown ile Söylesi (Đstanbul: Tüstav Yayınları, 2004).
854 For such an argument, see Đlhan Akalın, Đsçi, Sendika, Tarih (Ankara: Öteki Yayınevi, 1995), especially
Chapter 7.
855 Sülker, Đki Konfederasyon, p. 50.
856 Koç, Türk-Đs Tarihinden Portreler, p. 54. See also Saban Yıldız, “Türk-Đs’in Kurulusu ve Bazı Gerçekler,” in
Sosyalizm ve Toplumsal Mücadeleler Ansiklopedisi 6. cilt (Đstanbul: Đletisim Yayınları, 1985).
312
The United States Foreign Operations Administration (FOA) sponsored special
seminar courses for union leaders in various parts of the country in cooperation with the
government. These courses started in Đstanbul on 14 June 1954. According to the report of
Cam-Đs, about 90 unionists attended in the courses, which continued two months.857 Sina
Pamukçu, who was then a young lawyer eager to find a job in the trade unions, remembers
that all the prominent trade unionists of the time, such as Kemal Türkler, Rıza Kuas, Seyfi
Demirsoy, Bahir Ersoy, Saban Yıldız, Đbrahim Güzelce were present at the Worker Training
Courses.858 A 1954 survey which provides a profile of the union leaders in Turkey reveals that
these courses were very important for the political and cultural formation of many unionists.
The survey covered 251 trade union leaders, 139 of whom were under the age of 35. 150 trade
unionist had completed primary education, but only 15 of them had graduated from secondary
or high school. The survey revealed that the unionists had high expectations from the FOAsponsored
seminar courses which was the only channel that provided information about the
theory and practice of trade unionism.859
Commissioned officers from the US labor ministry participated in the courses as
instructors on the history and present situation of American unions, American type of
unionism, and trade unions’ relations with the political parties and society. The courses
continued throughout 1954 and 1956 in 15 cities. Hundreds of young trade unionists received
training on unionism in these courses.860
857 “Sendikacı Yetistirme Kursu Açıldı,” Cam-Đs, 1 July 1954.
858 Aziz Çelik, Sina Pamukçu ile Sendikalı Yıllar, p. 35.
859 Engin Ünsal, Đsçiler Uyanıyor (Đstanbul: Tan Matbaası, 1963), pp. 108-109. For similar observations about
trade union leaders see, Kemal Sülker, “21 Sendikacı ile Yapılan Röportaj Serisinin Sansörü: Dost Acı Söyler,”
Gece Postası, 11 October 1951.
860 “Đsçi Seminerleri,” Đsçi Sesi, 2 October 1954; “Hedefsiz Gayretler,” Đsçi Sesi, 2 October 1954; “Eskisehir Đsçi
Yetistirme Semineri Faaliyete Geçti”, Đsçi Sesi, 22 October 1955.
313
The nonpolitical – so-called American type – unionism of Türk-Đs may be traced to the
influence of these organizations and their close association with Türk-Đs. This type of
unionism was based on the harmony of class interests, which opposed class-based politics and
fitted neatly with the nationalistic ideology.861
Institutionalization of Trade Unions and Working Class Politics
The legislative restrictions on the activities of trade unions had a determining effect on
the development of trade unionism in Turkey. These legislations and institutions were
certainly a straightjacket imposed on workers and unions. However, it would be wrong to
assume that the working class discourse and politics was determined unilaterally by these
institutional influences.
Labor’s connection to state-related values appears particularly powerful and influential
when other intellectual sources to which to movement might have turned is practically absent.
As discussed above, the unofficial unionization movement in 1946 was initiated by two
socialist organizations. The ruling party did not want to legalize unions, yet they became
obliged to regulate them when those organizations quickly widened their scope of influence.
Before the establishment of “national type” unions, most of the existing unions were damaged
or closed permanently and leading organizers were arrested in consequence of the police
investigations launched against the Socialist Party of Turkey and Socialist Laborer and
Peasant Party of Turkey by the Đstanbul Martial Law authorities in December 1946.
Consequently the area of worker organizations were cleared from the pro-leftist tendencies
and become vulnerable for the ruling party.
861 Kemal Sülker, Đki Konfedarasyon: Türk-Đs ve DĐSK (Đstanbul: Koza Matbaası, 1976), pp. 51-56.
314
In 1950 Esat Adil Müstacablıoğlu reestablished the Socialist Party of Turkey with a
small coterie of organizers who had been active in some of the 1946 unions. However, the
Socialist Party would not appeal to new union leaders and members until it was finally closed
and its leaders were imprisoned after the failed attempt of textile workers to hold a public
demonstration in Taxim square in 1952.862 By 1950 a second socialist party was established in
great hope of recruiting working people to its ranks and taking hold of the fast-growing trade
union movement. The Democrat Labor Party (DLP) was founded by lawyer Orhan Arsal and
a group of renowned unionists including Üzeyir Kuran, Ferruh Apaydın, Nizamettin
Yalçınkaya and Đbrahim Güzelce. In the beginning, the party had some supporters among
print operators and metal workers. However, the party lacked a realistic and long-term
strategy to expand its support base. On every occasion, the party and its leader, Orhan Arsal,
criticized the unionists for collaborating with employers and selling out the cause of labor.863
As early as 1952, the DLP, frustrated by the insouciance of the unionists and workers towards
the party, decided to withdraw its members from the administrative courts of the trade
unions.864 With this move, the party lost all its links with the labor movement and finally was
dissolved in 1955. A third attempt to form a left party in the 1950s came with the Homeland
Party (Vatan Partisi) which was established in the last days of 1954 under the leadership of
862 “Sosyalist Partisi Sanıkları Tevkif Edildi,” Aksam, 19 June 1952. “Dün Gece 3 Saat Sorgudan Sonra,” Gece
Postası, 19 June 1952. During a parliamentary discussion in early May 1952, the Democrat Deputy of Prime
Minister Samet Ağaoğlu accused the Socialist Party for having provoked the strikes of municipal workers in
Đzmir and coach drivers in Ankara. It is higly dubious whether these incidents were instigated by the socialists,
but this speech signalled the closure of the party. TBMM Tutanak Dergisi, term 9, session 2, vol. 15, 7 May
1952, pp. 97-100.
863 See Demokrat Đsçi Partisi Birinci Sarı Çizgili Kitap (Đstanbul: Oğur Matbaası, 1953), p. 5, See also
“Demokrat Đsçi Partisi Mitingi,” Aksam, 26 May 1952.
864 Orhan Arsal’s arrogant and conceited attitude towards unionists might have played a significant role in this
process. Avni Erakalın reminds that when he and a group of unionists who were interested with the party visited
Arsal in his office, they were shocked by his contemptuous style against the unionists. This was the last contact
they made with Arsal. For similar observations about Orhan Arsal, see Nihat Sargın, TĐP’li Yıllar 1 (Anılar-
Belgeler) (Đstanbul: Felis Yayınları, 2001), p.58; See also Ünsal, Đsçiler Uyanıyor, p. 127, 129.
315
Hikmet Kıvılcımlı. A group of textile workers was also among the founders. The Homeland
Party participated to the 1957 elections only in Đstanbul and Đzmir. Its candidates were
predominantly workers and professionals. This party was abolished by the government and
twenty-five of its members were arrested in January 1958 for having promoted
communism.865
The remarkable weakness of an independent political alternative targeting the working
class had a decisive effect on the particular formation of working class politics and ideology.
The political and social environment of the period was extremely unfavorable to any leftist or
socialist activity. In the immediate aftermath of the war the government had begun to seek
closer ties with the United States and had succeeded in obtaining military and economic
assistance under the Truman Doctrine and Marshall Plan respectively. Turkey was one of the
few countries that immediately offered and sent troops to Korea, an incident which
dramatically increased the anticommunist sentiments throughout the country. Joining the
NATO alliance in 1952 guaranteed it a safe place in the capitalist world against the political
and ideological expansion of communism. The cold war became the guiding principle of
political life and anti-communism came to define the political vocabulary after 1945. Beyond
any doubt the strong anti-communist atmosphere of the period affected workers and their
organizations. The fear of being labeled communist was the greatest political concern of
unions. Many unions felt the need to put in their charters a special clause to prove that they
were not “red unions” which “instigate class struggle to the detriment of national interests or
promote the politics and ideology of a foreign country.”866
865 Emin Karaca, “Demokrat Parti Döneminde Komünist Hareketin Kuğu Çığlığı: Vatan Partisi,” in Sosyalizm ve
Toplumsal Mücadeleler Tarihi Ansiklopedisi Cilt 6 (Đstanbul: Đletisim Yayınları, 1988), pp. 1962-1963.
866 See Đstanbul Liman ve Dokları Gemi Sanayii Đsçileri Sendikası Ana Nizamnamesi 1947 (Đstanbul: Rıza
Koskun Matbaası, 1956).
316
A former leader of Demiryol-Đs, Adnan Binyazar, reminds that unionists were
frequently threatened by allegations of communism. “There was severe fanaticism then. You
could not even wear a red tie because a person wearing a red tie meant this person could
disseminate communism. We could not dare to pronounce the word social between 1955 and
1965.”867 As early as 1948 Sabahattin Selek noted that the archaic habit of associating trade
unions with communism was the greatest obstacle before the development of trade unions in
the country. However, he does not omit to note the actuality of the unions’ mission to fight
against communism:
Unfortunately there are many who mingled trade unionism with communism. Today
many workers who do not get enrolled in trade unions choose to do so because they
are afraid of being stigmatized or because they believe that unions are the seedbeds
of communism. However, Turkish trade unions are fortresses against communism.
The enemies of communism should support them instead of avoiding them.
That being said, it would not be right to belittle the threat of communism.
Communism is like the tetanus bacteria. It should not be neglected how so ever little
the lesion may be. We should be cautious, but not in the degree of a
hypochondriac.868
Thus the trade unions and union activists had to put a great effort into displaying their
anti-communist fervor. The labor and trade union newspapers, published either by the trade
unions themselves or by some profit-seeking private entrepreneurs, emphasized repeatedly
both nationalism and anti-communism as the essential features of the association they
proposed. These were appeals to a value system that was shared with the rest of the society,
not radically opposed to it. It should be noted, however, that the anti-communist fervor was
867 Quoted in Yirmibesoğlu, p. 82.
868 Sabahattin Selek, “Đsçi Düsmanları,” Hürbilek, no. 2 (24 April 1948). “Maalesef komünizm ile sendikayı
birbirine karıstıranlar çoktur. Bugün sendikaya iltihak etmeyen isçilerden birçoğu lekelenmekten korktukları ve
sendikanın birer komünist yuvası olduklarına inandıkları için uzakta duruyorlar. Halbuki Türk isçi sendikaları
komünizme karsı bir kaledir. Komünizm düsmanı olanlar bu tesekküllerden kaçacak yere, onlara yerdım
etmelidirler… Bununla beraber komünizm tehlikesini küçümsemek doğru değildir. Komünizm tetonos mikrobuna
benzer. Yaranın küçüklüğüne bakıp ihmale gelmez. Tedbirli bulunmalı, fakat tedbiri evham derecesine
vardırmamalıyız.”
317
most visible in the newspapers and journals published by private publishers rather than the
labor unions. Such newspapers and journals were full of news about the suffering of workers
under communism and the never-ending conspiracy plans of the communists to prepossess the
workers. An editorial article appeared in Đsçi Dünyası reveals clearly these opinions:
The Turkish worker acknowledges that the communism is the most implacable
enemy to us. Every drop of the sacred blood that flows in his veins is for the sake
of this saintly land which has been irrigated with the blood of our fathers. Like all
Turks, he hates every ideology that has its root from outside. Turkish worker!
There is a saying, “fish is caught in trouble waters”. Take care of ones who will
try to benefit from the situation you are in. The welfare of nations lies in the unity
of the masses. The spirit of national unity and solidarity is present in the noble
blood flowing in your vessels.869
The nationalist sentiments served as a powerful tool in the hands of governments not
only to suppress opponent trade unions and left-wing political parties, but also for other
political reasons. Evidence reveals that during the 6-7 September 1955 events, trade unions,
especially the ones which were supported and controlled by the government were mobilized.
By 1955 there were established links between pro-DP union leaders and the leadership of the
ultra-nationalist Cyprus Belongs to Turks Society (Kıbrıs Türktür Cemiyeti), which would
take the leading role in the riots. In many provinces and towns, the society was established
through the agency of unions and DP local organizations together. The then-chairman of
Türk-Đs, Đsmail Đnan, also assumed the presidency of this society. 870 The events were
triggered by the government to demonstrate to the London Conference how strongly the
Turkish people opposed the unification of Cyprus with Greece. However, the course of events
869 “Türk Đsçisinin Hüviyeti,” Đsçi Dünyası, 20 February 1953. Đsçi Dünyası was published in Ankara by a private
publisher. According to the Encyclopaedia of Trade Unionism in Tukey, the newspaper adopted a policy in line
with the newly founded Türk-Đs. Türkiye Sendikacılık Ansiklopedisi II (Đstanbul: Tarih Vakfı Yayınları, 1996), p.
102.
870 Dilek Güven, Cumhuriyet Dönemi Azınlık Politikaları Bağlamında 6-7 Eylül Olayları (Đstanbul: Tarih Vakfı
Yayınları, 2005), pp. 63-64.
318
quickly turned into a riot. Worker unions were manipulated as much as youth organizations
during these events. 607 out of the 977 people who were arrested after the attacks and lootings
were workers. After the events, the initial reflex of the government was to put the blame on
secret communist organizations, but most unionists knew that the riots had been organized by
pro-government unions that were organized in public sector workplaces, and many workers
had participated in the events. In the months following 6-7 September, a total of 66 trade
unions were closed in Đstanbul.871
It should be underlined, however, that the anti-communist movements among workers
and their organizations equally derived from a sense of self-defense. The unions often
subscribed to anti-communist rhetoric and action for the sake of avoiding legal sanctions or,
more importantly, proving their legitimacy. As observed by contemporaries, on every
occasion during the period employers and politicians accused the unions of having destroyed
the old social arrangement based on class harmony and that functioned smoothly under its
own direction.872 For unions every opportunity to make public demonstrations or such large
meetings to advance their rights was robbed by the authorities under the pretext of avoiding
class hatred or class struggle. The recurrent attempts of the workers to organize outdoor
meetings always were halted by the governments during the late 1940s and 1950s.
Consider, for example, the attempts of the Đstanbul Textile and Weaving Industry
Workers’ Trade Union to organize public demonstrations in Taksim Square twice in 1951 and
1952. The first of these attempts came in January 1951 when massive dismissals occurred in
the textile sector. The textile trade union appealed to the governor’s office to hold a public
demonstration against the dismissals and to air their demands for banning the importation of
871 Aziz Çelik, “6-7 Eylül’den Bugüne GONGO’lar,” Radikal Đki, 12 September 2010.
872 Kemal Sülker,
319
raw thread. However the governor rejected the union on the pretext of the related clauses of
the law on meetings and rallies. The failure of the attempt gave rise to serious discussions
within the Đstanbul Trade Unions Alliance concerning the role of labor unions and the
meaning of class struggle.873
One year later, the textile trade union attempted to organize a second demonstration
with more or less the same demands. This time a number of independent and left-wing unions
also supported this initiative. The Employers’ Trade Union responded promptly by making a
statement that labor unions were unjustified in their demands and that they were acting in
order to exert an illegal pressure on the government.874 The governor, Fahrettin Kerim Gökay
repeated his attitude against such public demonstrations and recommended the unions to seek
solution to their problems in the arbitration committees. By the time the governor had
declared his decision, all preparations had been made by the union. Announcements were
posted on the walls all around the city and arrangements were made about the organization of
the arena and workers’ transportation to the meeting.875
The unrealized meeting of 1952 triggered broad debates in the concerned public about
democracy, workers’ rights and class struggle. The textile trade union issued a declaration
which severely criticized the governor and the government. Around thirty-five workers
submitted their resignations from the Print Operators’ Trade Union to protest the governor.
Furthermore, four members of the administrative board of the Đstanbul Trade Unions Alliance,
Üzeyir Kuran from Maden-Đs, and Đbrahim Bilge, Seref Hivel and Đbrahim Güzelce from the
873 Sülker, Türkiye’de Sendikacılık Tarihi, p. 163; “Đstanbul Đsçi Sendikaları Birliğinde Tartısmalar,” Gece
Postası, 7 February 1952.
874 “Đsçilerin Mitingi,” Aksam, 17 April 1952.
875 “Đsçilere Miting için Müsaade Edilmedi,” Aksam, 19 April 1952; “Đzin Verilmeyen Miting,” Gece Postası, 24
April 1952.
320
Print Operators’ Trade Union resigned from their posts on account of the fact that the Alliance
could not stay firm against the pressures of the government. 876
Workers’ initiative and the response of the governor also were brought onto the agenda
of the National Assembly. In May 1952, the Kırsehir deputy of RPP Halil Sezai Erkut
delivered a motion in the Assembly asking the government that if it had been involved in the
governor’s illegal act of cancelling the meeting of Textile Union. The question was answered
by Deputy Prime Minister Samet Ağaoğlu. Ağaoğlu’ answer reflects a vulgar anti-communist
rhetoric of the time. According to him, when the demands of textile workers were regarded
together with recent strike actions of Đzmir municipality workers on 6 May and Ankara taxi
drivers on 21 March,877 it became apparent that all these actions had been controlled and
directed from one political center. He also warned the audience that trade unions were trying
to incite class struggle by engaging in such illegal acts:
Colleagues, I will read aloud the following from the declaration which was posted
on walls before the meeting (Worker compatriot, we cannot close our eyes any
more to the employer who exploit the labor power of his worker and dismiss him
without a just cause; to those who want to make the super profits that they get
used to make by taking advantage of our labor.) Here colleagues, after reading
these words, we are asking: Where are we going? Are we going towards class
struggle? Are we going to rally in the arenas and engage in class struggle between
capital and labor?878
876 See “Vilayetin Mitingleri Menetme Salahiyeti Olmadığı Anlasıldı,” Aksam, 16 May 1952. Related
newspaper reports are available in Demokrat Đsçi Partisi Birinci Sarı Çizgili Kitap, pp. 21-29.
877 For these incidents, see “Đsçiler Đzmir’de Grev Yaptılar,” Đstanbul Ekspres, 7 May 1952; “Grevci Soförler,”
Aksam, 8 April 1952; See also “Đleri Jön Türkler Birliği Avrupa Komitesi'nin Ankara Söförlerinin grevini
engellediği iddiasıyla Basbakan Adnan Menderes'i suçlayan mektubu”, BCA Catalog no. [30.01/18.103..3].
878 TBMM Tutanak Dergisi, term 9, session 2, vol. 15, 7 May 1952, pp. 97-100. “Arkadaslar miting dolayısiyle
duvarlara yapıstırılmıs ve indirilmis olan beyannameden satırlar okuyacağım. (Đsçi vatandas, emeğini istismar
ederek sebepsiz yere isine nihayet veren isverenle kanunun bize bahsettiği hakları vermemekte ısrar eden, türlü
kaçamak yollarla alıstığı fahis kazancı yine sırtımızdan çıkarmak isteyenlere daha fazla göz yumamayız.) Đste
arkadaslar, bu satırları okduktan sonar haklı olarak soruyoruz: Nereye gidiyoruz? Sınıf mücadelesine mi
gideceğiz? Meydanlarda toplanarak sermaye ve say mücadelesi mi yapacağız?”
321
Ağaoğlu completed his speech by establishing an analogy between workers’ initiative
and the 31 March incident (31 Mart Vakası) of 1909 and by asserting that if they had not
taken strict measures in time, major provocations might have occurred during and after the
demonstration.879
The words of Ağaoğlu, which implied an organic link with the Socialist Party of
Turkey (allegedly the extension of the illegal Communist Party) and trade unionists must have
placed too much stress on the latter, considering that his assertions had broad repercussion in
the press. As far as the available material indicates, the first anti-communist meeting of
workers in the 1950s took place just in this conjuncture. The Đstanbul Trade Unions Alliance
held an indoor meeting in Eminönü Halkevi “to curse communism and to declare the loyalty
of workers to Turkish nationalism” on 13 May 1952.880
The first legal public demonstration of trade unions took place in a similar political
context. When in early 1953 allegations were raised by a group of employers that some
unionists and workers were acting in a “communistic manner,” that is to say, trying to raise
class conflict in the workplaces, Türk-Đs decided to respond to such allegations by holding a
large meeting.881 Upon that, the Sakarya Trade Unions Federation adopted a resolution to hold
a public demonstration in Eskisehir. The stated purposes of this demonstration were as
follows: first to proclaim once again that trade unions of Turkey are national institutions;
second to declare that workers were loyal to Atatürk’s reforms and principles and to protest
879 “Gözü pek, kolu kuvvetli 100 isçi seçilecek, Taksim meydanında toplantıya mani olan polisler göğüslenecek
ve açılacak gediklerden isçilerin geçmesi sağlanacak. Sayet tevkif edilenler olursa 100’er kisilik gruplar
karakollar önünde toplanarak arkadaslarının haksız yere tevkif edildiğini ve dövüldüklerini ileri sürerek gürültü
çıkaracak… Memleketimizde muhtelif vasıtalarla bir 31 Mart havasını yaratmak tesebbüsleri seziliyor. Fakat
hangi yoldan gelirse gelsin bu tahriklere karsı hükümet, Cumhuriyeti, vatandasları ve demokratik rejimi
muhakkak surette koruma kararındadır.”
880 “Türk Đsçisi Komünizmi Daima Boğacaktır,” Đstanbul Ekspres, 18 May 1952
881 “Eskisehir Mitingi,” Gece Postası, 22 February 1953.
322
those who claimed the opposite; third to demand the abolition of restrictions and pressure
over the trade unions and protest the dismissal of union members without a just cause; and
fourth to declare the public opinion that the unions are custodians of the republic and the
backbone of democracy.882 The meeting took place in a movie theater because of the rainy
weather. However, the organizers seemed to be satisfied with the positive atmosphere of the
meeting. According to the press, “vehement speakers expressed the nationalist and anticommunist
sentiments of the workers in the presence of an enthusiastic crowd.”883
Another public demonstration organized by workers took place in September 1953
when eleven workers who were members of the Đstanbul General Construction Workers’
Trade Union were arrested by the police in an alleged plot to disseminate communist ideas
among workers. The sporadic arrests and revelations of alleged communist abuses and
conspiracies were common tactics of the governments to heighten the anti-communist
sentiment within the country and stimulate the US to sustain foreign aid to Turkey. The
arrests of eleven workers were probably such a movement of the government. However, it
was enough to terrorize some of the unions, which once again felt obliged to express publicly
their commitment to nationalism and other principles of the regime.884 The Ankara Trade
Unions Alliance’s meeting in Ankara witnessed one more time the expression of same banal
nationalist rhetoric from the mouths of Türk-Đs leaders and other established union leaders
about the evils of communism, the nationalist character of workers, etc.885
882 “Türk Đsçisi Komünizmi Tel’in Ediyor,” Đsçi Dünyası, 20 February 1953. “Büyük Bir Đsçi Mitingi
Yapılacak,” Đstanbul Ekspres, 7 February 1953;
883 “Eskisehir Mitingi,” Đsçi Dünyası, 27 February 1953.
884 See M. Đsmet Ünal, “On Bir Meczup,” Gayret, 26 September 1953.
885 “Komünizmi Tel’in Mitingi,” Đsçi Dünyası, 25 September 1953; “Komünizmi Tel’in,” Gayret, 26 September
1953.
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One may wonder, however, whether the meetings organized by union federations and
alliances reflected the real concerns of the workers. As argued above, at least a certain number
of workers heartily shared an aversion to communism and any kind of leftist politics. But the
available sources reveal that none of these meetings managed to gather more than a couple of
thousand workers. The audiences of these meetings were most probably brought by public
sector factory unions which often had intimate relationships with the state and government.
To make a comparison, it is worth considering that while Türk-Đs and some Türk-Đs
supported regional union alliances were organizing anti-communist events in early 1953, the
Đstanbul Trade Unions Alliance attempted to organize one more time a public demonstration
in Taksim square on 15 March 1953. The purported reason of this action was the continuous
pressure of the employer of the Zeytinburnu Cement Factory on union members. But it seems
that the actual motive of the Alliance was to respond to wider calls of affiliated unions to take
action.886 The administrative board’s resolution concerning the meeting was adopted as early
as on 10 February to reserve adequate time for preparations.887 The organization committee
expected at least 50,000 workers to attend the meeting.888 The negotiations between the
governor and the alliance continued to the last minute when finally, on 14 February, the
governor cancelled the meeting. Yet in the early morning of 15 February 1953 tens of
thousands of workers set off into the streets to arrive at Taksim square. The boats which
crossed the Bosphorus were full to overflowing with workers. Even though thousands of them
were diverted by the police and gendarme, at least 10,000 workers arrived early at Taksim.
886 Avni Erakalın, interview by author, tape recording, Aksaray, Đstanbul, 20 May 2010.
887 “15 Mart Mitingi Hazırlığı,” Gece Postası, 7 March 1953.
888 “Đstanbul Đsçilerinin Muazzam Mitingi,” Đsçi Dünyası, 20 February 1953; “Miting Đçin 50 Bin Davetiye
Dağıtıldı,” Gece Postası, 13 March 1953.
324
After some negotiation, 21 workers were allowed to leave a wreath on the monument in the
Taksim Square.889
It is difficult, if not impossible, to know what large groups of workers really felt and
thought. It is still difficult to what extent nationalist, populist and other political discourses
affected the self-perception of the workers. More is known, however, about the relation
between labor organizations and political parties. As stated above, Law No. 5018 sanctioned
any kind of political activity for trade unions. This had a serious impact on the future policies
of unions in terms of their political activities.
Although they often pressed policy demands on the state in addition to the demands
they made to employers, trade unions, on the whole, were disconnected from political activity.
Their domain came to be restricted largely to the workplace and to political demands that
directly affected work or their right to organize. In reciprocal fashion, public officials
tolerated these demands only when they were limited to workplace concerns, and the unions
increasingly diminished the scope of their activity to bread-and-butter unionism. The political
system, in turn, was a trans-class institution, which mobilized supporters where they lived on
the basis of territorial identities. Led by the solidarist ideology, the political parties for the
most part downplayed class and class conflict in the interests of political patronage and
distribution.890 This ideological inclination was reflected in Türk-Đs’s “above-political parties”
position, which was adopted on the grounds that the Turkish working class was not mature
enough to form its own political party and even if it was it would be to the workers’
889 Müsaade Edilmeyen Đsçi Mitingi,” Gece Postası, 16 March 1953; Đstanbul Đsçi Sendikaları Birliği, 1952-1953
Devresi 9 Aylık Faaliyet Raporu (Đstanbul: 1953), p. 30. This report claimed that at least 50 thousand workers
were present at Taksim in the early morning of 15 March 1953.
890 See Đlkay Sunar, “Populism and Patronage: Democrat Party and its Legacy in Turkey,” in State, Society and
Democracy in Turkey (Đstanbul: Bahçesehir Üniversitesi Yayınları, 2004)
325
disadvantage to force class struggle between workers and employers.891 Even where union
leaders sought to organize third parties to fight for social change, such unionists frequently
became excluded from the union circles.
However, in the 1950s workers wanted to be in the political sphere in addition to their
activities in trade unions because they wanted to see more workers in the parliament. This is
the reason why they created the “Support Committee of Turkish Worker Parliamentarians” in
1954. The aim of the Committee was to encourage and support the worker candidates for the
1954 elections. The Committee was founded by eleven prominent unionists to support all the
workers who were willing to become deputies regardless of their political party affiliations.
However, the Committee was liquidated by a court verdict soon after its foundation.892 After
that date the DP actively tried to control the leadership of the labor unions. Unions whose
leadership supported the RPP were either threatened with temporary shutdowns for engaging
in political activity or were harassed by fines that kept them in constant financial trouble.
Union leaders who supported the DP, however, were protected and often rewarded by being
elected as representatives in the parliament in the DP ranks.
Executives of trade unions tried to get involved individually in the slates of both the
DP and RPP after 1954.893 They had a greater tendency towards the DP since this party
promised to be more generous to include workers in its slate. In the 1950 elections both
parties nominated only three workers as candidates.894 In 1954 elections more workers were
891 Saban Yıldız and Sükran Kurdakul, Sosyalist Açıdan Türk-Đs Yargılanıyor (Đstanbul: Ataç Kitabevi, 1966),
pp. 34-35.
892 Sülker, Türkiye Sendikacılık Tarihi, pp. 306-307.
893 Kemal Sülker, “Parti Listelerinde Yer Alan Milletvekili Adayı Đsçiler ve Bazı Fikirler,” Gece Postası, 9 April
1954.
894 The RPP list included 41 merchants, 39 farmers, 27 soldiers, 6 industrialists, and 3 workers. The rest of the
candidates were middle class professionals. The DP list included 55 merchants, 56 farmers, 23 soldiers and 4
industrialist and 3 workers. Fatma Alev Atayakul, “Türkiye’de Demokrat Parti Döneminde Genel Seçimler
326
included in the candidate lists, but only four candidates among the ranks of unionists were
elected as DP deputies. Two of them, Naci Kurt and Ahmet Topçu, were elected in Đstanbul,
while Abidin Tekön was elected in Đzmir and Necati Dikmen was elected from Zonguldak.895
In 1957 elections the major parties displayed an extraordinary effort to attract the vote
of workers in large cities.896 The opposition and the government parties clashed on the
question of workers’ living standards and their freedom to organize and the right to strike.
The Republicans, departing from their former conservatism, claimed that the Democrats were
mindful of workers’ welfare only to the extent it suited their partisan purposes, but failed to
acknowledge their political maturity by giving them freedom of organization, and the right to
stirke. The democratic speakers claimed that the workers’ living standards were approaching
those in the West and since their educational level was still low they could not properly use
the right to strike; such a right would eventually be granted.897
In this election RPP included 9 workers in its electoral list. The former Đstanbul
Provincial Labor director, Bedii Süngültay, and the former director of Labor Exchange, Faruk
Kardam, were also candidates of the Republicans. The Democrats had fewer worker
candidates in comparison to the 1954 elections. However, the DP list included two renowned
unionists. Both the chairman of Türk-Đs, Nuri Beser, and the chairman of Đstanbul Trade
(1950-54-57)” (Master Thesis, ĐÜ Sosyal Bilimler Enstitüsü Uluslararası Đliskiler Ana Bilim Dalı, 2007), pp.
179-181.
895 “Parti Listelerinde Yer Alan Đsçi Adaylar ve Aldıkları Oylar,” Gece Postası, 6 May 1954.
896 According to contemporaries working class votes amounted to 400 thousand in Đstanbul and stimulated the
appetite of the major parties. Kemal Sülker, “Đs ve Đsçi Dostu Seçmenlerin Önemi,” Gece Postası, 25 September
1957.
897 Kemal Karpat, “The Turkish Elections of 1957,” The Western Political Quarterly, vol. 14, no. 2, (June,1961),
p. 447.
327
Unions Alliance, Mahmut Yüksel, became candidates of the Democrats.898 The candidates of
working-class origin were active during the campaigns of their parties and often took the floor
in the meetings of their parties.899
The Freedom Party (Hürriyet Partisi) entered the election campaign with an
exaggerated belief in its own strength and importance. It claimed that it provided a new slate
of candidates who had never been associated with the one-party regime, proposed a new
eclectic economic policy, and described itself as the only party capable of solving Turkey’s
problems. The presence of the Freedom Party in 1957 elections was important for it provided
a platform for workers to air their demands and working class issues. The party was
established by middle-class reformers who were sympathetic to workers’ demands. The
Freedom Party electoral list included 15 workers. Among them there were left-wing union
leaders like Avni Erakalın and Rıza Güven from the Textile Workers’ Trade Union.900 The
election results, however, were disappointing for the Freedom Party which would soon
dissolve itself and merge with the RPP in 1958.901
The experience of electoral politics clearly indicated that to advance workers’ rights by
sending worker representatives to the parliament proved to be a delusion. Despite their
flirtation with alternative responses to great difficulties that workers confronted, a majority of
trade unionists followed a more accommodating strategy and their unions came to
overshadow the organizations that pursued less conciliatory policies. Mainly the unions
affiliated with Türk-Đs chose this course of action because their leaders concluded that “the
898 “Đsçi Adaylar Arası Mücadele Baslıyor”, Gece Postası, 4 October 1957; “Mebus Adayı Đsçiler”, Gece Postası,
5 October 1957.
899 “Đsçi Hatiplerin Pazar Günkü Konusmaları”, Gece Postası, 15 October 1957.
900 Kemal Sülker, “Hürriyet Partisine Katılan Sendikacılar”, Gece Postası, 9 October 1957; “Hürriyet Partisinin
Sendikacı Adayları ve Tekstil”, Gece Postası, 12 October 1957.
901 The Freedom Party only won 4 seats in the Parliament with receiving 3,86 % of the votes (356.419).
328
above politics” unionism adopted by the confederation was the only viable form of working
class organization in Turkey. By 1957, after changing hands several times between the DP
and the RPP, the Democrats exerted their power decisively on the Türk-Đs leadership. The
various efforts by union leaders to secure changes in government policy through electoral
activity ultimately were defeated. The former unionists who had been elected in the
parliament were co-opted to the party system and became alienated from the rank-and-file
members of their unions. The strategy of working through a third party (the Freedom Party),
which also had been supported by left-wing unionists, was also defeated.
Conclusion
Until the end of the 1950s it was possible for the trade unionists to work together
because to a considerable degree they shared a common vocabulary and set of objections to
the dominant institution of values of the mid-twentieth century Turkish economic order. There
were differences among them, but the similarities were sufficient to speak of a single, albeit
amorphous, labor movement. The mutual vocabulary shaped by the concepts of rights,
equality, social justice902 and based on a heightened sense of worker identity and sense of
conflicting interests with employers903 provided the workers and unionists with the channels
necessary to articulate their common demands. However, by the end of the decade the conflict
between bread-and-butter unionists mostly associated with Türk-Đs and co-opted by the party
system, on the one hand, and the more radical unionists who grasped a strong hold in Đstanbul
Trade Unions Alliance on the other, became more visible.
902 A discussion on the basic concepts and characterstic features of this discourse is provided in Akın, “The
Dynamics of Working Class Politics in Early Republican Turkey”.
903 The existence of strong sense of conflicting interests and even enmity towards employers in the trade union
circles in particular and among working class in general was well observed by the socialist intellectuals in
Democrat Labor Party as early as 1952. See Demokrat Đsçi Partisi, Birinci Sarı Çizgili Kitap.
329
In the harsh and authoritarian environment of the late 1950s, the separation of the two
understandings of unionism was not aired openly. This conflict and further radicalization of
left-wing unionists came in the more libertarian atmosphere of the early 1960s. The workers
were one of the major groups using the advantages of the democratic constitution and its
proposed reforms related to their rights to strike. The prominent Saraçhane demonstration of
at least 100,000 workers at the end of 1961 symbolized the formation of a working class with
distinct dispositions, identity and interests. The Sarçhane meeting, which was organized by
the Đstanbul Trade Unions Alliance, was probably the greatest mass demonstration in Turkish
working class history until that time and arguably could be compared to 15-16 June 1970
demonstrations with respect to the size of the events. The reason for the meeting, demands
aired by workers, banners carried during the long marches which proceeded along all the main
roads of the city, all indicated the opening of a new era in working class politics. The meeting
bore a number of slogans which expressed the actual demands of workers such as “not
condescension, but rights”, “unconditional strike rights”, “wage: 350, house rent: 150, enough
is enough”. Another group of slogans such as “Bosses drive Cadillac, workers walk barefoot”,
“we don’t have rounded belly to tighten the belts”, “wage rise to deputies, grief to workers”
targeted the bosses and other privileged groups as the groups to blame for the poverty of
workers.904 Mehmet Ali Aybar remembers a giant banner that hung just in front of the
platform. It depicted a group of round-bellied employers gathered around a desk. Behind them
a worker raised up in his coverall, lands his punch on the table saying: “we have words to
say.”905 The single banner illustrated the whole meaning of this mass demonstration for
Aybar. The Saraçhane demonstration, the increasing news of strikes in the newspapers, the
904 “Saraçhane Mitingi” in Türkiye Sendikacılık Ansiklopedisi II, p. 567; “Dev Đsçi Mitingi,” Gece Postası, 31
December 1961.
905 Mehmet Ali Aybar, TĐP Tarihi 1 (Đstanbul: BDS Yayınları, 1998), p. 190.
330
boost of demands from trade unions to have their right to strike made clear in the eyes of the
contemporaries that organized workers had already become a political force.
This meeting also symbolized that, at least for the organizers of the event, the
economic and social welfare of workers could not be isolated from the question of the
political representation of class interests.906 Avni Erakalın, then the chairman of the Đstanbul
Trade Unions Alliance, recalled that when they talked with other left-wing unionists (such as
Üzeyir Kuran, Kemal Türkler and Ziya Hepbir) of the plans of a large demonstration, they
had three aims in mind: first, to enhance the self-confidence of workers; second, to show the
members of National Unity Committee that workers were determined to grasp their rights;
and third, to accustom workers to the idea of a labor party.907
There were other signs that workers had become more inclined to question the
separation of the domains of economic and political. Consider the passage that appeared in a
union journal just before the Saraçhane demonstration:
It becomes more clear in the minds (of the workers) that it is not possible on any
account to consider that workers and economy, economy and politics are seperate
entities. A trade union engages in politics firstly because of its foundational cause.
The public order which aims to separate worker from politics is put to prevent the
implantation of the ideology that we deeply hated in this community. But it seems
that it is firmly understood by the worker leaders that the interest of the worker
stands on the opposite side of this ideology, a doctrine (democratic socialism)
which is even antagonist to it.
For this reason, we urgently feel the need for a political party which adopts the
principle of democratic socialism and which articulates the laborers as a unity that
bears a particular idea and opinion. 908
906 In the late 1950s the criticism of Türk-Đs’s “above politics” stance was more openly expressed in the reformist
press. For instance Adil Asçıoğlu wrote in the KĐM magazine that workers could no longer grasp their problems
unless they saw them as political issues. Adil Asçıoğlu, “Đsçiler Yalnız Kendilerine Güvenmelidir,” KĐM, 20
February 1959.
907 Avni Erakalın, interview by author, tape recording, Aksaray, Đstanbul, 20 May 2010.
908 “Ne olursa olsun isçiyi iktisattan, iktisadı siyasetten ayrı mütalaâ etmeye imkan olmadığı gerçeği beyinlere
iyice yerlesme yolundadır. Bir sendika herseyden önce kurulus sebebiyle siyasetin içindedir. Đsçiyi siyasetten
ayrı tutmaya çalısan kamu hükmü, nefret ettiğimiz bir ideolojinin bu kitle içinde yerlesmesini önlemek için
331
The specific experience and language of class that is explored in this chapter
contributed positively to the development of a more radical working-class politics in the
1960s and 1970s. This new political culture and language were built on critical assessment of
the corporatist construction of labor relations and the rejection of the idea that employers and
workers were members of the same family. The evolution of the state-related values and the
establishment of political and legal institutions restricted in a certain degree this formation of
class identity. Nevertheless, the economic and social developments in the course of the late
1940s and 1950s opened channels which enabled workers to advance the struggle and
challenge the legitimacy of the established order in which workers suffered from all kinds of
deprivations. Subsequent labor movements critically would adopt this language and elaborate
it further in the following years.
vazedilmistir. Ama artık isçinin menfaatinin bu ideolojinin tam karsısında, hatta ona düsman bir doktrinin
yanında olduğu bütün isçi önderlerince anlasılmıs görülmektedir.
Bu sebeple artık emek-sermaye münasebetlerini düzenleyecek, demokratik bir sosyalizm prensibini güderek emek
sahiplerini ne istediklerini bilen, belirli bir fikir ve kanaate sahip bir bütün haline getirecek siyasi partiye
siddetle ihtiyaç duyulmaktadır.” “Özlem,” Petrol-Đs, 15 December 1961.
332
CHAPTER 7
CONCLUSION
This study explored the everyday experiences and changing meanings workers
attached to their living and working conditions in Turkey between the end of the Second
World War and the early 1960s. This was a crucial period of transition from one-party rule to
a relatively liberal regime, the development of social reform and protective labor legislation, a
growing urban economy and expansion of wage labor, the emergence and rise of the trade
union activity, attempts at modernization and rationalization of production, and heightening of
concerns on the part of the political and economic elites to define and redefine the social
question of labor which composed a large arena of discourses and policies from the housing
conditions of working class families to their quotidian cultures and the problem of low labor
productivity. Throughout the study it was argued that this historical context created the
cultural, intellectual, linguistic and organizational space on which the subsequent labor
movement was built. These transformations were crucial for the emergence of the class
identity and the establishment of institutional practice that were further elaborated by workers
over the following years. The study also aims to show that the seemingly routine and
ordinary existence of everyday life contained the possibilities of the creation of distinct class
enclaves.
333
The main concern of this study was a critical engagement with some intrinsic
dichotomies of histories of class formation in Turkey, such as those between work and offwork,
between structural and political class formation, and between quotidian cultures and
formal organizations of workers.909 It first explored the spatial dimension of working class
formation, arguing that forms of organization and identity are built first on territorial basis and
that the working class territoriality became a primary issue of contention between different
actors during the period. The housing conditions of the working class became a central part in
debates about social problems and social policy in those years. Images of affluence and
deprivation, health and morality, industrial discipline and productivity; and issues of
segregation and community integration were strongly associated with the housing of the
laboring families. The links established between external sanitary and moral condition to the
homes of the poor, along with the competitive environment between the rival parties to attract
the votes of the growing laboring masses provided the appropriate juncture for the birth of
housing policy. However, the policy of the public provision of housing remained incapable of
meeting the growing demand for affordable housing for the laboring poor. Especially the
laboring families in the big cities suffered most from poor sheltering conditions. On the other
hand, the advantages offered by “flexible” type of squatter housing and commuting conditions
helped to develop strong attachment to the neighborhood. This also was manifested in the
rapid growth of neighborhood organizations which provided the primary mechanism to
strengthen group solidarity and articulate the common interests of the squatters.
909 For an example of pervasiveness of such dualities in thinking class formation in Turkey, see Metin
Çulhaoğlu, “Türkiye’de Đsçi Sınıfının Olusumu ve Sınıf Kültürü,” in Birinci Sınıf Çalısmaları Sempozyumu: Đsçi
Sınıfının Değisen Yapısı ve Sınıf Hareketinde Arayıslar, Deneyimler, eds. Basak Ergüder et al. (Đstanbul:
TÜSAM ve SAV Ortak Yayını, 2005).
334
The different meanings attached to home was another theme discussed in this study.
According to middle class reformers, physical and moral health defined the essential qualities
of the ideal home. In their vision, home ownership was not crucial and many well-off families
who could have afforded to buy their residences stayed in rent. Yet, having titles to their
homes, in spite of costs in sanitation and comfort, bore much more importance for workers.
Workers were more determined in seeking ownership of homes, for in a period where
managerial bodies sought more control over the production process in workplaces, building or
purchasing a home meant securing some autonomy, control and financial security for workers
in a significant part of their lives. Further research on working class housing, I believe, could
expand our knowledge on a vital area of social life and its relation to structures of working
class solidarity and identity running beneath the levels of trade union and associational
activity that normally form our understanding of working class consciousness.
Given the degradation of work and the emergence of privatized, inward-looking
consciousness under developing capitalist relations, many workers sought escape from the
monotony of everyday life in such leisure pursuits as film, sport or coffeehouses. However,
leisure was not taken in this study as a commodified and irrational sphere of modern society.
This thesis adopted a culturalist approach with the purpose of moving closer to workers’ lives,
locating the potential of solidarity in everyday practices where working people sought to
demarcate a kind of autonomous space both in and outside the work, and generally affirmed
themselves in a hostile and limiting environment. In the light of this perspective, the study
scrutinized the ways working class men and women imposed their own meaning and uses
upon the new leisure forms. Working class public life was characterized by informality,
intimacy, vivacity and active socialization.
Beneath the formalization of a labor movement culture was a popular culture that
remained impermeable to the attractions and rationalizing effects of middle-class reformers
335
and state bureaucrats. Such leisure activities were effectual in the formation of a distinct class
culture and identity. In this respect, it is vital to explore these aspects of working class
experience and culture that do not fit easily to conventional understandings of labor history.
However, we should avoid constructing a stark dichotomy between the organized labor
movement and a larger universe of working class culture beyond its reach. On the contrary, as
was discussed, the boundaries were very fluid in this sense.
The study focused on the local and quotidian contexts in which the possibilities were
created for class politics and resistance, on the one hand, and conformity and acquiescence, on
the other. One of the inspirations of this study was specified as the conception everydayness
as an effort to question large structural generalizations and recover specificity. This outlook
guided the discussion on the changing regimes of industrial discipline and its impact on
working class identity and protest. Shop-floor history provides a suggestive agenda in this
respect.910 Only by looking at specific industries and at individual workplaces with distinctive
production lines could the diversity of workers’ experiences be recovered and elements of
what Alf Ludtke called self-assertion (Eigensinn)911 and resistance be detected.
Exploring the transformation of the labor process in textile mills provided an
invaluable opportunity in this respect. It was seen that weavers, for example, enjoyed a
considerable degree of autonomy at work. Experienced weavers trained newcomers and
generally handled the functions normally discharged by employers and managers. In
consequence, the sea change in the wage system became all the more important as the
medium of managerial control through which employers asserted their right to set the rate and
910 For the promises of shop-floor history for labor studies, see David Brody, “The Old Labor History and the
New: In Search of an American Working Class,” Labor History 20, no. 1 (Winter 1979).
911 See Alf Ludtke, “What is the History of Everyday Life and Who are its Practioners?” in The History of
Everyday Life: Reconstructing Historical Experiences and Ways of Life.
336
judge the amount and quality of the output. Along with the formal organizations of workers, I
focused on the informal and quotidian structures of solidarity to point the analysis in a
different direction and recover the weavers’ self-perception of their labor and their reaction to
the changes in the production process.
Acts of self-affirmation by the weavers may not have expressed a conscious outlook
against the prevailing structures of exploitation and dominance and may have been far from
formal political concerns. Yet workers’ indifference to class politics did not mean that they
had no idea about the everyday functioning of capitalist production relations and could not
articulate their common interest to pursue. It is true that only a minority of workers became
enrolled in socialist parties and still fewer developed affinity to socialist ideas. However,
workers’ everyday life, where the abstract structures of exploitation became tangible and
directly experienced, generated a culture of solidarity and resistance, which provided
considerable political potential. Under circumstances of social and political crisis (such as the
late 1950s) or during smaller local mobilizations (such as the campaign against overtime work
in Mahmutpasa and the anti-Bedaux movement in Mensucat Santral) this potential could take
on a fuller meaning. I also argued that combined with the organized power of the employers,
who disciplined their workers via forms of company paternalism, the division of workers
along the lines of gender, skill and commitment to industrial work placed weavers and trade
union militants at a serious disadvantage in the resistance against the growing demands of
employers.
Labor law is probably the most developed sub-field of labor studies in Turkey.
However, the novelty of the discussion presented in this study lies in its recognition of law as
a constitutive system of everyday practices. I also analyzed the functioning of labor law as a
power relationship between employers and workers that provided the former with the
potential for considerable control.
337
During the period, the working population experienced a massive migration and new
urban societies were being manufactured. When migrants were flooding to the cities from far
and near with such a startling diversity of customary cultures and such enormous local
mobility, the effect of existing traditions were bound to be small. The new working class in
the cities was composed overwhelmingly of people who had moved to a new environment
from long distances. Under such conditions, the question of the subordination of labor
required extra-economic instruments to facilitate and secure productive discipline at the shopfloor
level.
I argued that through the labor law, inspectors, state officers and factory managers
interceded in the apparatuses and processes of production. Concurrently, discipline became
more severe. Factory inner regulations became detailed and involved working times, security
and hygiene conditions. Labor inspectors who were endowed with great authority were often
indifferent to worker complaints about discipline issues while their decisions on other issues
were rarely binding on employer. Furthermore, the social embeddedness of manufacturers
within the local elite provided them with access to and power to manipulate the legal system
as a means of labor control. However, it appears that legal norms and institutions gave way to
unpredictable consequences in terms of the working class consciousness. The legislation
system itself magnified the worker’s sense of himself as a worker rather than as a citizen or
the nation as a whole.
While engaging the concept and history of class, this study also provided an
understanding of the genealogy of class identity, forming a foundation for further study of the
contested domains of class in the history of trade unions, of the changing meanings of labor,
of the changing perception of the relationship between the economic and the political
instances, and the rich terrain of conflict between the state and trade unions as well as among
the latter on the boundaries of class and the role of associational activity. I showed that
338
although the legislative restrictions on the activities of trade unions had a significant effect on
the development of trade unionism in Turkey, the working class discourse and politics was
not determined unilaterally by these institutional influences. The specific experience of
economic and social conditions and the more inclusive language of class that developed in the
course of the 1950s contributed positively to the rise of a radical working-class politics in the
coming decades. This new political culture and language, which was constructed on the
critical assessment of the corporatist construction of labor relations and the rejection of the
solidarist notion of society, was manufactured by a circle of radical trade union militants who
rejected the tutelage of the state and defended the independence of class politics during the
unfavorable climate of the 1940s and 1950s.
339
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