Organising and Representing Hard-to-Organise Workers: Implications for Turkey.

Organising and Representing Hard-to-Organise Workers: Implications for Turkey.

Molina, O.  & Guardiancich, I. (2018). Organising and Representing Hard-to-Organise Workers: Implications for Turkey. Ankara: International Labour Organization.

Organising, representing and involving into social dialogue mechanisms undeclared workers, workers with non-standard contracts or more generally hard-to-organise workers (HOW), poses considerable challenges for social partners and governments all around the world. But at the same time, the representation of the rapidly increasing numbers of such workers is necessary in order to achieve an inclusive and socially sustainable growth. The organisational, institutional and socio-economic context in each particular country determines the type and intensity of problems encountered by social partners in organising these groups of workers. The analysis of cases of organisation and involvement of workers with non-standard contracts or in the informal economy reveals a wide variety of strategies, mechanisms and actors involved. The differences observed relate to the particular sector, occupation, type of contract or group involved, but they are also explained by the institutional and socio-political context. The analysis of successful organising and representation experiences in countries with labour markets and/or industrial relations institutions sharing some similarities to those in Turkey, provides some important insights on the policies and strategies necessary to achieve this goal. The main points coming out from the analysis of existing work and practices on HOW organising strategies can be summarised as follows:   - First, the success of HOW organising strategies is context-specific and requires tailored approaches by social partners and governments. Not only similar groups of workers may face different problems depending on the country, but trade unions may also have different organisational characteristics and power resources that will determine the success of organising policies. The diversity of strategies developed by trade unions shows the importance of adapting the principles underlying the organising model to the conditions prevailing in each country. Particularly relevant in this regard is the need to adapt trade union strategies to the characteristics of workers in order to meet their diverse needs and expectations. - Trade unions efforts at organising HOWs are just one element in order to improve the labour market position of HOWs. In many cases, a minimum floor of rights and / or protection granted by state through adequate regulation and effective enforcement is required in order to guarantee the success of organising strategies and the effective protection of these groups of workers. Some of these regulations include the right to organise collectively or the right to be represented and to be eligible for workplace representation structures.  - One of the most rapidly growing groups of HOWs are (bogus) self-employed, freelancers, crowd workers and independent workers. New technologies, together with neo-liberal discourse and policies, allow for new forms of enterprise organisation that are very often mere contact points between companies and workers or between suppliers and consumers. Workers involved in some of these activities are characterised by medium-high skills, hence departing from the traditional low skilled character of undeclared workers, or non-standard workers more generally. However, there are also many examples of platform-based companies that rely on low-skilled labour like Uber, Deliveroo etc. In spite of a more individualist approach towards the labour market and a fragmented employment relationship, often providing services and working simultaneously for several employers, organising strategies in some countries have been successful in organising these groups. This shows how in spite of growing individualisation, organising remains possible whenever trade unions or any other organisation are capable of highlighting their common challenges and the need for collective action. - Except for trade unions in liberal industrial relations systems, trade unions in most European continental and Latin American countries have struggled to adapt their structures and strategies to involve and organise non-standard workers. Even though the adoption of inclusive strategies has now become widespread, significant differences persist in the extension and success of organising strategies. These differences relate to three inter-related factors: the institutional setting, power resources of trade unions and their organisational structures.  - In order to overcome the obstacles facing trade unions in organising undeclared workers and workers with non-standard contracts, some strategies come out from the analysis as particularly relevant for the case of Turkey:  o First, developing new power resources. More specifically, one of the power resources that has proved to be particularly important in organising is the so-called collaborative or coalitional. In particular, the cases analysed in this report make clear the need of trade unions to collaborate with other actors, including worker cooperatives and NGOs. Alliances with other non-union organisations have proved to be very helpful in those contexts where trade unions have difficult access to employees (the case of SMEs or the informal sector). This is particularly important in the case of informal workers’ organisations. o Second, organising is more likely to succeed in organisational contexts where trade unions have de-centralised structures and decision-making processes. In those institutional settings where trade union structures remain centralised, the activation of grass-roots required in order to implement successful organising strategies will be more difficult. De-centralisation allows the development of a more variegated approach towards organising, depending on the type of workers, sector, workplaces etc.  o Third, organising requires financial and organisational resources. These resources are particularly important in contexts where collective bargaining coverage is low or trade union representation structures are lacking in many workplaces. Two types of resources are particularly important for successful organising. First, dedicated organisations within trade unions that will provide assistance to develop campaigns and policies. Second, it is necessary to provide specific training to those groups of workers that will be leading the organising campaigns. Moreover, the cases presented show a complementarity between targeted service provision and organising strategies; organising efforts become more effective when unions / organisations provide targeted services to vulnerable workers. o Fourth, awareness raising campaigns on the conditions facing undeclared and non-standard workers are a pre-condition for successful organising for two reasons. First, they may increase public pressure on governments to regulate the conditions of a certain group of workers, hence facilitating their organisation and involvement in social dialogue. Second, these campaigns facilitate the creation and consolidation of shared identities and collective action. o Fifth, the increasing fragmentation and diversity of organisations, recommends in some cases to move beyond the workplace in order to develop adequate organising strategies. Even though the workplace remains an important space for union recruitment strategies, reaching non-standard and undeclared workers requires very often the adoption of local-based approaches as the attachment of non-standard and undeclared workers to a single employer is weaker than for workers under the standard employment relationship or in the formal economy. This is particularly important in a context of growing sub-contracting and outsourcing of activities.

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