In its conclusions, the June 2011 ILO Conference Committee on the Application of Standards (CAS) noted that “no specific progress had been made on the long-awaited draft law on trade unions”. However during 2011, there have been on-going discussions between the government, trade union confederations and employers on modifications to Turkish trade union legislation. The new draft legislation called the “Collective Labour Relations Law” is intended to replace the “Trade Unions Law”, coded 2821, and the “Collective Labour Agreement, Strike and Lock-out Strike,” coded 2822. Several Turkish confederations have argued that the new law if enacted would reduce workers’ and trade unions’ rights and were in breach of European and the international labour standards.
The new draft included some improvements such as the lifting of the public notary requirement regarding union membership, which had been a major barrier to union organising and the fact that legal challenges by employers based on the presence of other unions at workplaces would no longer be a reason to suspend the bargaining authorisation process. However, the proposed system, through “e-government”, maintained government interference and control in union-member relations. Furthermore, the reduction of the number of sectors makes it more difficult for trade unions to meet the national sector threshold. Despite those modest improvements, the draft still did not comply with international labour standards (ILS). The system of thresholds as a pre-condition for unions to hold bargaining status as well as for plant level and enterprise level collective agreements were still breaching ILS. Furthermore, according to this draft, all bureaucratic procedures for collective bargaining authorisation processes would stay in place. Strike prohibitions remain and strikes are still banned in sectors in a way that goes well beyond the ILO definition of “essential services”. The draft law maintains the power of the Council of Ministers to suspend by decree a lawful strike for public health and national security reasons. The use of such vague terms as “national security” and “public health” often leads to clear and obvious violations of the right to strike. Under the draft law, local courts would have the authority to suspend strike activity under the same vague formulation; a measure that would be worse than current legislation.
At the end of the year, the second draft law had been modified and was being discussed in Parliament. This second draft has been condemned by several trade union organisations for containing regressive provisions compared to the existing law and to the first draft law discussed with social partners earlier in 2011.