The TEKEL resistance movement: reminiscences on class struggle.

Summary

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Behind the News - Report

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The TEKEL resistance movement: reminiscences on class struggle.

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Some brief information on TEKEL workers' resistance

TEKEL is a privatised former state economic enterprise--the state monopoly of tobacco and alcoholic beverages--which employs 12,000 workers in 43 factories and workplaces in 21 cities across Turkey. British-American Tobacco, the new owners, sacked thousands of workers at the beginning of 2009. TEKEL workers decided to resist the '4-C' status by which their average monthly wages were reduced from TL1,200 (roughly US$800) to TL800 (roughly US$550), and the fact that they were offered job contracts of 10 months, with no guarantee of renewal. They gathered in Ankara, the capital city, occupied the streets of one of its central squares, Sakarya, and lived there in makeshift tents in the freezing cold of winter for 78 days, from 15 December 2009 to 2 March 2010. For more information, see Savran (2010a) and Yeldan (2010).

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Introduction

Andrew Sayer (2005) begins his book, The Moral Significance of Class, by writing, 'Class is an embarrassing and unsettling subject'. It is a fair point, since in the present day there is probably no other state of sociality like the class that includes us, while at th...

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