Turkey’s accession to the European Union and the Turkish Labor Movement

Abstract

This article argues that regionalism carries an important potential to transform the environment in which organized labor struggles to improve the rights, freedoms and livelihoods of working populations. By examining developments in the social and employment policy fields in the European Union (EU) and the emergence of new supra-national venues of communication and cooperation for labor organizations at the national and European levels, the paper focuses on the experiences of organized labor in Turkey in the process of attempting to join the EU. It maintains that the emergence of organic ties with EU-level organizations and institutions during the course of the EU accession process has had a deep impact on the ways which Turkish trade unions transformed and strengthened their political agendas, organizational capacities, and mobilization strategies. The paper concludes that strengthening the interactions between national and supranational levels of organized labor may help restore the legitimacy, credibility and strength of trade unions as societal actors in Turkey, and can compensate for their previous decline by reinvigorating their political power through supranational connections.

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