Metal workers’ resistance broke out in Bursa and quickly spread to other major industrial cities at time when all attention was focused on 7th June general elections, one of the most critical elections in Turkish history. Workers occupied factories and stopped production at big automotive factories of Renault, TOFAŞ (produces FIAT automobiles), Ford and Turk Tractor as well as supplier companies of ORS Rulman, Coşkunöz, Mako and Ototrim. In most factories the bosses had to immediately meet workers’ demands to prevent occupation and resistance.
BRIEF INFORMATION ABOUT THE RESISTANCE
Negotiations with the union MESS, members of which include metal factory workers, lead to a three year agreement based on inflation, despite all the refusals of metal workers. The leaders of the union that signed the agreement, Turk Metal, had attained better conditions for BOSCH workers that previously tried to resign from Turk Metal and set up their own union. The variation in the conditions was such that workers could earn up to 500TL more than others. Workers in the main factories, where Turk Metal organisation is strong, have started protest following the agreement.
On 5th May, Renault metal workers have been the target of substantial attacks by Turk Metal leaders on a field they gathered to resign. These attacks, where numerous workers have been injured, have brought previous such attacks by Turk Metal to mind. News of resignations from Turk Metal have flooded from factories. Workers that resigned from Turk Metal presented the demands of workers to employers. When they refused tools were downed first in Renault on 15 May. The action, where those on shift occupied the factory buildings and those that weren’t occupied factory yards, spread to TOFAŞ, Coşkunöz, Mako, Ototrim in Bursa, Türk Traktör in Ankara and to the three factories of Ford Otosan in Kocaeli ve Eskişehir in that order.
The number of workers that joined the action reached 25 thousand and resignations from Turk Metal increased in many factories where production had continued. The workers’ action lasted approximately two weeks. Workers demanded that Turk Metal leave the factories, that negotiations should continue with worker reps and that BOSCH agreement conditions apply to them. Despite pressure from government, all state organs and primarily the police force and Turk Metal and despite the trickery of employers, workers made significant gains. Employers had to meet all demands accept the BOSCH agreement conditions. On the wages front, improvements that didn’t reflect in hourly wages but paid as bonuses were introduced. Furthermore, these improvements have been introduced in not only the factories where the resistance took place but all factories under the MESS umbrella; becoming the gains of all metal workers.
IT WAS NO SURPRISE
The resistance of the metal workers is no surprise, considering the conditions the working class are subjected to. The squeezed working class working in slavery conditions in factories was not going to be sustained infinitely. If we look at Renault, the “flagship” during the resistance according to workers; daily production in 2005 was 45 vehicles and has gone up today to 60. Furthermore, number of workers in UET units were 36 back in 2015 and this is down to 19. It is not possible to explain an increase of a third of in productivity, while the workforce is halved, with the advances in technology and the resultant renewal of work practices and machinery. This can only be seen as the new heights the inhumane working conditions and levels of exploitation have reached. Situation becomes clearer if we take that Turkey is the country with the longest working day among OECD countries into account.
Under these conditions, rebellion of the working class against the current factory order and living conditions was inevitable. The issue was when and how this was going to happen?
Today, at a time when action in different forms is continued, the most discussed issue is the central demand of the metal workers’ resistance. Downing of tools and subsequent factory occupations by workers were initially seen as an attempt to chance their union. Furthermore, perception demands by workers’ to expand financial criteria of the BOSCH agreement to themselves as a simple, limiting demand of “wage increase” has strengthened analysis of this orientation.
Indeed, workers initially looked at the BOSCH agreement and deciding that they were treated as the “lesser child” and started from a point that demanded elimination of “favouritism” from their union. The treacherous line of collusion displayed by the unions and the complicit oppression of workers with bosses, etc. lead to workers’ fury fully targeting union bureaucracy. Since it was the union masters – as if what will be done was their decision – that stood in the way of even the smallest demands of workers, even before the bosses.
What workers wanted was to change the organisation of production and the factory order, created gradually by capitalist neoliberal aggression of the last quarter century. The demands of workers to establish conditions of the BOSCH agreement in their own workplaces was not a simple demand of increased wages but a renewal of the Collective Labour Agreement (TİS) that was practically signed. This meant the collapse of the system created by bosses and the Metal Goods Industry Union (MESS); they acted with absolute “class consciousness” and took a stance that risked everything, including a loss of millions of Euros.
Metal workers have landed a heavy blow to union bureaucracy and in closing an era in worker-union relations, opened the doors wide to a whole new era.
Firstly, the Resistance started in the major automotive factories and spread very quickly to subsidiary companies and the supply industry; it did not stop there but spread to other automotive and tractor factories, mobilised white goods industry workers. In many companies the unrest and mobilisation of workers could only be quelled – indeed just to calm them down – by concessions of the type given by TOFAŞ. The affects have spread and mobilised many other sectors including glass, petrol/plastic, food production and finally news, etc.
Another distinct characteristic of the Resistance is the demolition of the ring of union bureaucracy – the “guard dog”of the bosses – and to an extent transpiring directly through the self-organisation of the workers.
Relying on the “legitimacy” of their demands, metal workers pushed the workers’ movement – drowned by the “legal limits” that union bureaucracy kept dragging it into – to its ultimate point and enabled it stand on its feet gain. Metal workers did what union chiefs could not; determine the limits of their struggle based on the legitimacy of their demands rather than the ‘legal’ framework of capitalist regulation.
They initially threw themselves into the struggle without a strategy or plan. From the start they realised the weaknesses this caused and tried to fix it quickly. They realised first that without organising they weren’t going to win. They organised rapidly, identifying spokespeople at the factory, shift and unit levels (model of organisation of Renault workers); they argued and formed their solutions to issues through this mechanism they created. They continue to strengthen this organisation after the Resistance. They made sure that the least involved workers were also brought into the centre of the struggle by formulating their demands under three titles; a- no worker will be sacked or investigated because of actions during the Resistance, b- employers will respect workers’ right to unionise freely, including setting up their own new union, c- the improvements based on the BOSCH agreement will be reflected in the hourly rates of pay. In this context, another thing worthy of note is the re-formulation of demands according to new conditions – depending on developments.
At this milestone workers face a very real problem: what are they going to do now? They can either set up a new union, or become members of the unions that already exist or continue the current situation by paying a solidarity due until 2017.
Workers have acted practically like a union through the organisation developed throughout the Resistance. This was a demonstration also of the kind of union they want. The solution was borne straight from within the resistance. Either the unions will fall in line with the demands of workers or workers will build the kind of class organisation (union) themselves. There really is no third alternative.
Despite the recent deceleration, the Resistance started by workers against the capitalist order and the union bureaucracy continues in each factory within its own framework. Metal Resistance have indeed shown the potential for class struggle among workers as well as exposing weaknesses and failings of the working class movement; advancing in conditions of poor organisation at class/party level and underdevelopment, lack of awareness and inexperience of struggle. Metal Resistance has finished an era in workers’ and union movements. Possible ‘reasons’ put forward by union bureaucracy are unlikely to convince workers. “Rebuilding of the unions (movement) based on a combative base” established as an agenda among workers by the working class revolutionary party found its most concrete foundation in the metal workers’ resistance.
On the other hand, the aggression of capital and the living/working conditions of the working class further motivates workers to fight more every day. What is new will surely be borne from the bosom of the old and will evolve, strengthen and rule. This is also true for workers’ and the union movements; only if – for workers’ movement to become political and union movement to fall in line with class unionism – the working class can organise in a party and develop in terms of experience of struggle and conscience. This is the most fundamental truth that the Metal Resistance delivered to the working class and revolutionary movement agendas.
Bourgeoisie have undoubtedly learned its lesson form the Metal Resistance in terms of the the content and form of its attacks on the working class; regardless, lessons gained to their collective struggle by the combative metal workers and their followers are invaluable, the primary one being the closing of the gap with bosses in awareness and knowledge.
Lastly, it must be stated that unless the biggest contributor to this gap – the lack of experience, organisation and consciousness – is overcome, workers cannot face and fight the class enemies of bosses and all types of organisations on a level footing. This is the fundamental lesson of the Metal Resistance. As well as demonstrating the potential for the tendency to struggle among workers through organisation in a party that acts according to their own class demands, with their own world view and own class politics, the Resistance has established it as a necessity.