DİSK-AR: 90 Percent of Workers are Non-Union

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Confederation of Progressive Trade Unions of Turkey Research Department (DİSK-AR) has released its 2019 Research Report.

The report states that the union workers constitute only 11 percent of the workers in the country. The ratio of the workers who benefit from collective labor agreements is 7 percent.

"14 million 395 thousand million non-union workers"

According to the report, when public officers excluded, there are 16 million 254 thousand workers in the country. 14 million 395 of them are non-union.

Highlights from the report are as follows:

• When the unregistered workers included, the unionization rate is 11.4 percent. Although the Ministry of Family, Labor and Social Services announced the unionization rate as 13.9 in January, that only considers registered workers.
• Out of 16 million and 254 thousand workers in Turkey, only 1 million 132 thousand benefit from collective labor agreements. 15 million 122 thousand, or 93 percent of the workers are not included in collective agreements.

"Union workers do not have collective agreements"

• Union workers also do not have collective agreements. Although the Ministry's data show that 1 million 859 thousand workers are union members, only 1 million 132 thousand workers benefit from collective agreements.
• In the European Union countries, the rate of workers with collective agreements is above 50 percent. In Turkey, it is 7 percent.
• The three sectors with the highest rates of collective agreements are general labor, defense, security and banks, and financing and insurance.
• The three sectors with the lowest rates of collective agreements are tourism (1.6 percent), office (2.6 percent) and construction (2.8 percent).

"Rate of syndicated women are lower than men"

• unionization rate for women, when the unregistered workers are included, has decreased to 6.7 percent. While women constitute 27.6 percent of all the workers, only 19 percent of the syndicated workers are women.
• Between 1984 and 1995, around 60 thousand workers joined strikes annually, this number decreased to 9 thousand between 1995 and 2000, and to 5 thousand in the 2000s.
• Since 2003, strikes of 193 thousand workers have been postponed (banned). (EMK/VK)