Class war in time of a shooting war
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8 SOCIALIST ACTION FEBRUARY 2018 The author is a Fourth Internationalist in Turkey. The article is abridged from the FI online journal International Viewpoint. On Jan. 21, while Turkish President Re cep Tayyip Erdoğan was announcing his military operation against Afrin, at the same time in the city of Bursa, which is the heart of the automotive industry in Turkey (and one of the most important hubs for the entire European automotive industry), trade unions were coincidentally announc ing their strike decision, which would affect most of the industry in that city. Erdoğan threatened anyone who protests against the attack on Afrin, saying that they would pay a serious price. In the same way, a few days after announcement of the strikes in the metal industry, a decree was published prohibiting these strikes, saying they are harmful to national security. The strike decision in the metal industry was a result of ongoing collective bargain ing negotiations with the Metal Employers Union. The main issues in dispute were wage increases and the length of the agree ment. The unions asked for a two-year agreement, but the metal employers were pressing for three years. ... All the unions were forced by workers to take a strike de cision after the failure of collective bargain ing negotiations.
The automotive industry produces the country’s biggest export item. But despite this enormous wealth, automotive workers working in multinationals such as Renault, Mercedes, Ford, FIAT, etc., earn as little as $390 euros per month for a 45-hour week. So the demands of the workers for better working conditions overcame the political environment in the country, where every sort of demand is labeled as treason. But then the war came to help the unions who were reluctant to take the decision to strike. Just after the launch of the military campaign, the rhetoric of “national secu rity” emerged again, and the Türk metal union made a declaration, saying that “we are standing alongside the Turkish Armed Forces with all our heart ...” They with drew from the strike, but the other union involved, Birlesik Metal, issued a statement saying they would go ahead.
In the end, the strike, planned to start on Feb. 2, did not go ahead because following negotiations, the workers were given a sig nificant wage increase—24 per cent for the first six months.
Erdoğan was talking about and preparing this military attack for a very long time. Turkey tried to get support (or at least con sent) from the USA and Russia before start ing this military operation. Now a week af ter the start, it is possible to find many vid eos and images of destruction created by air strikes of Turkish army and torture of pris oners by Turkish-backed Islamist militias. After the start of the war, the government kept their promise and detained around 400 people because of their social media posts against the war. The entire executive coun cil of the Turkish Chamber of Medicine was arrested because of an antiwar declaration called “War is a public health problem.” War is rather useful for the Erdoğan gov ernment in trying to solve their governing crisis. Their rhetoric, based on national se curity, has succeeded in bringing together all sides of Turkish society. This pretext of a national crisis allows the government to ad vance their already authoritarian agenda— even including banning the planned strike by metal workers. n