Take It from Turkish Workers: You Don’t Want a Strongman
by Jane Slaughter
June 2, 2025
Introduction:
(Labor Notes) What has happened to workers in Turkey since the country voted to concentrate power in one man, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, should be a warning flashing red to workers elsewhere.
“When democracy shrinks, it hurts workers—when one man has all the power,” said Arzu Çerkezoğlu, president of Turkey’s Confederation of Progressive Trade Unions (DISK). “Parliament became useless, there’s no separation of powers. The president can control the laws that are made, and the judicial system. The justice system became an instrument of politics.
“Our labor laws are not functioning,” she said. “Workers’ share of national income is less.” Annual inflation stands at 38 percent—and that’s the lowest since 2021. Annual inflation for housing and utilities is 74 percent.
DISK represents blue-collar workers in the public and private sectors. A sister federation, KESK, represents white-collar public employees. A majority of the 327,000 DISK members work for municipalities or in factories.
Additional extract:
When polls showed that he might lose this year’s presidential election to Ekrem Imamoğlu, the mayor of Istanbul, in March Erdoğan had Imamoğlu arrested and charged with terrorism, corruption, and not being a college graduate. Ten weeks later the mayor is still in jail under pre-trial detention.
Read more here:
https://www.labornotes.org/2025/06/tak ... rongman
Don't mourn, organize.
-Joe Hill
