Before drawing conclusions on the effects of high and persistent levels of unemployment on the working class in Turkey, allow me to address several data on the issue. But, first of all, I should explain briefly why I start an article on the condition of the working class in Turkey with “unemployment”. The reason is simple and clear: it is not only that the threat of unemployment affects very large segments of the working class, but the unemployed constitutes one of the largest sections of the working class in Turkey.
According to the labor statistics presented by Turkish Statistical Institute (TSI), the unemployment rate in Turkey as of November 2011 is 9.1 per cent and the number of the unemployed is 2.5 million persons. However, in terms of the broader and truer definition of unemployment, [2] the number of unemployed reaches to 4.5 million and the unemployment rate to 16.2 per cent approximately. The official unemployment rate among the youth (those who are between 15 and 24 years of age) is around 17 per cent, whereas the real rate of unemployment among the youth is approximately 30 per cent and the number of unemployed young people is 1.438 million. In urban areas and among the youth with higher education levels these rates are even higher.
The number of those who are not actively seeking a job but available to start a job has been gradually increasing, reaching to 1.2 million. Approximately 700 thousand of those are discouraged workers, i.e. workers who gave up hope of finding work. It is perfectly plausible to assume that the subsistence of these people depends on social welfare benefits and other resources such as rural ties and solidarity funds etc. Table 1 below summarizes the unemployment statistics we have noted so far.
Table 1. Unemployment and labor force statistics
(thousand persons)
|
November 2010
|
November 2011
|
Labor force
|
25,665
|
26,696
|
Employed
|
22,854
|
24,267
|
Unemployed
|
2,811
|
2,429
|
Labor force participation rate (%)
|
48.6
|
49.4
|
Employment rate (%)
|
43.2
|
44.9
|
Unemployment rate (%)
|
11.0
|
9.1
|
Non-agricultural unemployment rate (%)
|
13.7
|
11.4
|
Unemployment rate among the youth (%)
|
20.8
|
17.0
|
Persons not in labor force
|
27,195
|
27,331
|
Unemployed according to broad definition
|
5,126
|
4,508
|
Broader (real) unemployment rate (%)
|
19,0
|
16.2
|
Source: TSI labor statistics
Another important matter that we shall underline is the large magnitude of persons not classified in the labor force [3] in Turkey. The persons who are not seeking a job but available to start a job are also a part of this category. 12.2 million of this population, which exceeds 27 million persons in total, are housewives, 4.4 million are persons in education or training, and the rest are the retired, disabled, ill or the elderly. These sections of the working class, which may be considered as inactive population, provide yet another potential labor force reserve to the capitalists apart from the unemployed. The ambition of the latest steps to be taken in the direction of imposing greater flexibility in the work regime in Turkey is to create a large labor force pool in which these sections of the working class could be mobilized when required. Of course, with the policies aiming to affiliate this population to the labor markets through atypical work, the government seeks both to increase labor force circulation and to exert downward pressure on the average wage, rights and working conditions of the laborers.
The so-called inactive population, which includes the underemployed [4], seasonal workers and persons not seeking a job but available to start a job as well, is an important leverage for the capitalist class. Similarly, those who participate in the work life after being a part of the large pool of inactive population will be proletarianized under the ideological influence of the same section of the population. Therefore, we may say that after the assault of imposing flexibility is completed, the new working class will be even more alien to ideas of organization and struggle due to both objective and subjective factors.
A crucial issue worth to mention is that the inactive population waiting to be included in the labor force, the unemployed and the workers with below-subsistence wage levels have gradually become more dependent on social welfare benefits and informal solidarity networks such as religious communities and sects during the terms of Justice and Development Party (AKP) governments. In this respect, we may claim that the ideological deformation caused by lasting ties of the urbanizing working class in Turkey with the countryside has eventually been replaced by the deformation caused by social welfare benefits and communal solidarity and charity networks as the former had been eliminated with the so-called “reforms” made after 2001 crisis in Turkey.
The most up-to-date data on the social welfare benefits provided by the government belong to late 2009. Yet, the time trend of the data provides sufficient information to summarize the situation. According to official statistics, the amount of food aids granted by the government to local administrations in order to be distributed through Social Assistance and Solidarity Foundations was 35 million TL (approximately 23 million USD) in 2003, 55 million TL (approximately 34 million USD) in 2004, 90 million TL (approximately in 60 million USD) in 2005, 150 million (approximately 100 million USD) in 2006, 140 million TL (approximately 93 million USD) in 2007, 213.7 million TL (approximately 142 million USD) in 2008 and 382.4 million TL (approximately 255 million USD) in 2009. We observe a similar, rapidly increasing trend in the provision of coal aid as in the provision of food aid during the terms of the AKP government. The number of households benefiting from the coal aid exceeded 2.2 million in 2009. Since this figure has increased even more in 2010, we can say that we are talking about a welfare item regarding approximately 12 million persons or around 7 million electors. Table 2 shows the trend of coal aid provision from 2003 to 2009.
Table 2. Number of families benefitting from coal aid, 2003-2009
Year
|
Amount of coal distributed (in tons)
|
Number of beneficiaries (household)
|
2003
|
649,820
|
1,096,488
|
2004
|
1,052,379
|
1,610,170
|
2005
|
1,329,676
|
1,831,234
|
2006
|
1,363,288
|
1,797,083
|
2007
|
1,494,163
|
1,894,555
|
2008
|
1,827,131
|
2,246,280
|
In terms of housing benefits, the government provided 919,900 TL (approximately 612,000 USD) to 415 persons in 2006, 2,503,950 TL (approximately 1,669,300 USD)to 642 persons in 2007, 40,461,955 TL (approximately 26,974,637 USD) to 27,906 persons in 2008 and 74,430,494 TL (approximately 49,620,329 USD) to 72,304 persons as of December 2009.
As these data suggest, the AKP government organized a broad social welfare network in which a large section of the population is included. Apparently, in the perception of these broad sections of the population, which as well include the working poor, the unemployed and the inactive population, the character of the government as a “service provider” has been replaced with the government as an “aid provider”. This is an important factor as it fits into the larger picture of changing perceptions on exploitation and inequalities. In this framework, the rights of the working class is not perceived as something achieved through struggle, but as something granted by the powerful. Hence, the public sphere gets wide-open for religious and reactionary organizations as the culture of “charity” is closely linked with religious ideology.
Besides social welfare benefits and charity networks, borrowing has become an important mean of subsistence for a large part of the working class and the mentioned population surrounding it. The banking reforms and economic conjuncture after 2001 crisis facilitated the access to personal consumer credits and credit cards have become one of the leading means of payment. Especially for the workers who do not receive their wages and salaries regularly, credit cards are essential. The highly indebted working class can be subjugated to the bourgeois ideology way more easily and strongly, and its interest shifts to sustaining the “economic stability” and the demands of the capitalist class so as to be able to roll-over its debts. In other words, to the highly indebted workers, the demands of their class enemies rather than their own seem much more relevant.
In order to give a rough idea about the level of indebtedness, allow me to refer to several statistics. In 2002, total amount of consumer credits were about 2 billion dollars, whereas it was over 80 billion dollars in 2010, and more than 90 billion dollars as of June 2011. The total liabilities of households were 129 billion TL in 2008, 147 billion TL in 2009 and 191 billion TL in 2010. During the same period, the ratio of households' total liabilities to their disposable income has increased from 36 to 41 per cent. However, the ratio of interest payments to the disposable income declined from 5.2 per cent to 4.4 per cent due to falling interest rates. In other words, consumers are way more indebted, but they allocate a lesser part of their income to interest payments. Thus, it is plausible to claim that their sensitivity to the changes in interest rates has increased. Almost half of the consumer credits are housing loans, whereas 45 per cent consists of personal finance credits and 5 per cent consists of vehicle credits. The number of persons with non-performing credit card loans has increased from around 1.1 million in 2008 to 1.6 million in March 2011.
Any development that would disrupt the flow of social welfare benefits, charity and loans would mean a disaster for the workers who gradually become more and more dependent on these factors. Therefore, the stability of the bourgeois politics and abstinent life has become their sole expectation for future. These circumstances are further entrenched by the relative distance of young generations of workers to the idea of organization and struggle.
The despair of unemployed masses and the quest for a safe haven led by it have played a significant role for the prevailing system to build the mass bases of reactionism.
A third factor which plays an important part in the fragmentation, disorganization, assimilation and subjugation of the working class in Turkey is the expansion of informal work in all sectors. It is impossible to talk about any kind of freedom for informal workers, let alone the freedom to organize. Apart from unemployment, an important reason for the toiling masses in Turkey to be engaged in informal work is the high level of indebtedness. In Turkey, the government plays a decisive role in collecting the loans, as non-performing loans are cashed out through confiscation. The government regulates the regime of loan payments; hence workers who either try to escape from the probability that their wages are seized or make ends meet give consent to informal work with no rights at all.