Flexible labour policy and the crisis of trade unionism: The case of Tekel workers resistance in Ankara

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Tezin Türü: Yüksek Lisans

Tezin Yürütüldüğü Kurum: Orta Doğu Teknik Üniversitesi, Sosyal Bilimler Enstitüsü, Sosyoloji Bölümü, Türkiye

Tezin Onay Tarihi: 2011

Öğrenci: MEHTAP TOSUN

Danışman: HEDİYE SİBEL KALAYCIOĞLU

Özet:

The aim of this thesis is to examine the practices directed to the flexibilisation of the labor brought together with the means of neoliberal structuring and the trade union crisis appeared as an outcome of these in terms of the Tekel Workers’ resistance in Ankara. The theoretical frame of this study is created in the content of the discussions that starting from the Marxist approach on trade unions and the critical view within this approach focus on the reasons of the crisis of the trade unions as a result of the applications of the neoliberal ideological structuring that appeared by the crisis of the accumulated capital during the mid-70’s. Over this perspective, the analysis concentrates on the one hand employment models” being multi-layered and insecure and on the other, the fragmentation of the class and therefore the representation crisis of the trade unions that are the outcomes of the commodification of the labor by the deregulation, privatization and flexibilisation policies applied in the process of neoliberal hegemony. In this context, the resistance of the Tekel workers that continued non-stop for 78 days is argued basing on the assumption that the process which forces the more flexible, insecure working conditions without any attachment to the trade unions via the application of the neoliberal political apparatuses becomes the common platform/destiny of all the parts of society constituted by different identity structures.