Ministry in Turkey designates pro-government Memur-Sen as representative at ILO conference
Turkey’s Ministry of Labor and Social Security has taken a decision to grant Memur-Sen (Confederation of Public Servants Trade Unions) the role to represent Turkey’s labor force in the upcoming ILO Conference.
A trade union whose applications to both ITUC and ETUC were rejected with the reason of their ‘close affinity with the government’, Memur-Sen is also a union that represents only the state employees rather than the labor force at large.
Speculations over Memur Sen’s position have already been a topic questioned since the latest statistical data published by the Ministry of Labor and Social Security designated Memur-Sen as the union in Turkey that has the greatest number of members. Prior to this, the labor union Türk-İş had been the union with most members and represented the labor force of the country at ILO conference since 1952.
According to this latest data, the number of members of Memur-Sen has increased by 2200% throughout the 14 years long government of AKP.
International Labor Conference of ILO is attended by a delegation from each member state that consists of a worker, an employer, and two government representatives, along with their advisers. And, according to the relevant rules, the designated delegates must be ‘nominated in agreement with the most representative national organizations of employers and workers.’
Though the Ministry announced that advisers will be from other unions, including Türk-İş, Hak-İş, DİSK, and KESK, Türk-İş stated in a written statement released on Thursday (May 11) that it will not be attending the conference since the decision of the Ministry ‘does not abide by ILO terms’.
Parts of the statement of Türk-İş read as: “According to the letter from Ministry of Labor and Social Security, Memur-Sen, which does not have members from many sectors and which represents only a particular part of state employees, has been selected to represent the workers… It is a great misfortune for the laborforce of Turkey that state employees, who are in the position of representatives of the employers, have been granted the role to represent them at the International Labor Conference... How the delegates are designated is stated in ILO bylaws. Unfortunately, this decision (of the Ministry of Labor and Social Security) is a decision that has been made without conformity with the term of ‘the most representative national organizations of employers and workers’. Under current conditions, Executive Board of Türk-İş has decided to not attend the 106th International Labor Conference…”
In conformity with the view of Türk-İş, experts also emphasize that giving Memur-Sen the role to represent the workers as a whole is controversial due to two main points: 1) Memur-Sen represents only state employees; 2) having the most number of members within the union does not automatically mean it has the ‘most representation’.