19.10.1995

Workers fight under a false flag

Aziz Demir reports on the political upheaval in Turkey and the growing militancy of workers

THE POLITICAL turmoil arising from a dispute between the coalition partners of Tansu Ciller’s government is a reflection of the crisis within the bourgeoisie of Turkey and of the widening gap between them and the working class.

The new minority government formed by Ciller, with the conditional support of the fascist Nationalist Action Party of Turks and the Democratic Left Party of Ecevit (“the conqueror of Northern Cyprus”) has failed to get the necessary vote of confidence. An early election is now on the cards.

The split in the coalition partners was blamed on the police chief of Istanbul, a certain Mr Menzir, notorious for his murderous attack on the city’s gecekondus - shanty areas - last March. Menzir openly attacked social democrat ministers who tried to intervene on behalf of the gecekondu youth he labelled “terrorists and subversives”. When the social democrats asked Ciller to sack him, she refused and the coalition collapsed.

Fascistic influence is not restricted to the police. Members of the Special Team (an ‘anti-terrorist’ force) have been openly bearing fascist symbols on their uniforms and even beating state officials who dared to criticise their blatant support for the Nationalist Action Party.

Yet another indication of the strains within the state was provided by the horse trading to form a new government. The support of the Nationalist Action Party for the minority government was secured when Ciller agreed to allow the personnel departments of six ministries to be controlled by the fascists.

However the most important aspect of the crisis facing the bourgeoisie is over public sector pay bargaining. Facing an ever increasing public sector debt, with the need to find new loans and yet keep control of spiralling inflation, the government refused demands for a wage increase proportional to the inflation rate. As a result the cosy relation between the government and Turk-Is (the Turkish trade union confederation) has collapsed.

The dispute around the setting of a statutory minimum wage continued and eventually, after the largest demonstration organised by Turk-Is in its history, a very low rate was set (£120 per month for adults; £100 per month for those under the age of 16). After this privatisation and mass redundancies came onto the government’s agenda. Subsequently, the legal screws began to tighten on the civil servants’ unions and a few were closed down.

Meanwhile public sector pay negotiations dragged on and the government did not even put any concrete proposals on the table. Some ministers even refused to take part in bilateral talks with the Turk-Is leadership. According to Turk-Is, under conditions of hyper-inflation real wages have fallen 45% since the end of the last pay round in1993. The best offer the government has put forward - for a few selected enterprises only - approached just 33%. The bargaining became impossible and the options left to Turk-Is were either surrender or take resolute steps which would eventually lead the class into a wider conflict.

When the Turk-Is leadership was pushed into a corner and obliged to heed the pressure of the rank and file, it began to wriggle. It tried to take the heat out of the situation by organising relatively controlled meetings and demonstrations.

As workers’ pressure increased, Turk-Is was obliged to organise one-day strikes, even in trades where strike action is banned. The government, in turmoil, did not dare to stop them. The Turk-Is leadership became the king-makers of daily politics.

The Democratic Left Party stated that its support for the minority government was conditional on ending the public sector pay deal “positively”, without indicating what this meant. Taking its cue from the DLP, the Nationalist Action Party rushed to gain the sympathy of the workers by saying that the same aim was part of its own conditional support.

Facing IMF-imposed public spending limits and the preparations to join the European Union’s single market, Ciller’s party refused their terms for supporting a new government, even if that meant losing a vote of confidence. Last Sunday when the vote was about to be taken in parliament, Turk-Is called a demonstration in Ankara.

The rusty Turk-Is machinery was put into motion and thousands of workers were transported to Ankara from every province. The police displayed a token resistance when they attacked some bus convoys which were approaching Ankara, but the workers easily overcame these and arrived in Ankara city centre in large numbers.

 The demonstration turned into a pantomime when a telephone call from Ciller to the president of Turk-Is arrived as he was addressing the demonstration, inviting him to come to more negotiations. Despite opposition from workers he eventually did, only to be physically attacked by some members of parliament.

The bourgeois political agenda in Turkey has driven the working class to take mass action again, albeit in support of one or other wing of the bourgeois parties. Even without political leadership the class instinct of the workers has brought them into confrontation with the state. In this confrontation they will learn that action on behalf of this or that section of the bourgeoisie, even if it causes the collapse of a government, will not deliver what workers need. Only action organised by themselves for their own interests can ensure a positive outcome for the working class.