Description

The purpose of this study is to find out the sources of agency among a group of unskilled
unionised workers. I argue that the lives of workers are situated in two domains, home and work,
and family and union membership respectively become the sources of agency coupled with a
discourse of blame. The discourse of blame, which is the daily form through which a sense of
impotence among workers, is consciously used by unionised workers under the leadership of
union representatives. This serves the construction of an imaginary community of workers based
on the idea of a society in harmony and balance. The broader historical context in which my
study can be situated in Turkey’s post-1980 period. In this period, export oriented industrialism
went hand in hand with a kind of de-industrialisation and adoption of flexible production
techniques both of which undermined the power of trade unions and the discourse of the welfare
state. Thus my study can be understood as an attempt to demonstrate a moment of unionised
workers’ responses to these processes. My thesis is based on a fieldwork that took place between
September 1999 and June 2001, in a factory, which produces electronic spare parts in Sefaköy. I
also visited frequently the union centre in Aksaray. It mainly depended on in-depth interviews
and observations in the factory but I also attended a few leisure activities outside the factory and
meetings in the union centre.