Here
is the link to a news article I have recently come across while surfing through
the Birgün newspaper: http://birgun.net/worker_index.php?news_code=1366531687&year=2013&month=04&day=21.
It is about the issue of seasonal agricultural workers in Turkey, whose
number
is estimated to be around one million and who probably constitute one of
the
few most disadvantaged socioeconomic groups in the entire country.
According to
the article, they find themselves in an extremely vulnerable position
caused
by a mix of factors such as the neoliberal policies of the Justice and Development
Party government, decades of conflict between the
PKK,
the Kurdish terrorist/guerilla organization, and the Turkish state, and increasing competition
from
Syrian workers, who tend to be willing to work at even lower wages in
the local
jobs. The article mentions among their problems primitive housing
options with
poor sanitary conditions (lack of bathrooms and improper disposal of
human
waste), diseases and absence of healthcare services, interruptions in
education
due to the work calendar and thus low rates of schooling and literacy,
exceedingly
high rates of mother and infant mortality, lack of clean drinking water
and marriage
at a very young age. The author argues that seasonal workers exist in
other
countries of the world but their conditions are much better in countries
of
Europe and North America than they are in Turkey. In his opinion, the
state
plans for improvement of seasonal workers’ living conditions have not been
implemented,
the GAP, the Southeast Development Project, fails to address the
problems with
real effect, and the authorities constantly resort to culturally based
excuses.
Recently I have also read news that the Kemalist Republican People’s
Party and
the pro-Kurdish Peace and Democracy Party have offered the Parliament
proposals
to open the problems of seasonal workers to debate and both proposals
have
been denied. I should note that we only rarely find serious coverage of
seasonal workers in mainstream news outlets and thus most people only
rarely hear about them if they do not encounter them themselves. In
addition, I believe that these seasonal workers face other problems when
they want to make their voices heard by the general public. It is
perhaps appropriate to consider them to be at the bottom of an underpriviliged regional
community, one that cannot create widespread legitimacy and publicity for its problems because of armed conflict etc., thus they
are far from having the ability to draw sufficient support for their
cause. On the other hand, given the strong
anti-neoliberal/anticapitalist current in the OccupyGezi protests and
the newly-emerged sympathy on the part of many Turks for the problems
faced by Kurds due to the same wave of protests, I wonder whether it might be possible to open up a channel in the political field that can offer
any significant relief to these seasonal workers, who are in a situation reminiscent of some form of internal colonization. Why not? One can only
hope!
i agree that seasonal workers are extremely vulnerable. at first instance, their labor seems to be flexible and seems to be in line with the needs of current post-fordist production scheme but in fact, they are engaged in highly labor-intensive work and there is no way for the majority of the seasonal workers to switch to some less labor intensive positions because the work itself is extremely exploitative. as you point out, interrupted education and physical harshness of the work are both very strong points to argue. but i think one reason why seasonal workers cannot make themselves heard is related to their disadvantage to get unionized and it makes the problems circular.
ReplyDeleteI certainly agree with you. It goes without saying that the main problem of workers anywhere is unionization. I just attempted to offer a speculative explanation for factors besides that. By the way, I would love to read whatever you have to say about, for instance, refugee workers in Turkey. You should consider keeping a blog. :-)
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