The Confederation of Progressive Trade Unions of Turkey ( Turkish: ''Türkiye Devrimci İşçi Sendikaları Konfederasyonu'', DİSK) is one of the four major

national trade union centre A national trade union center (or national center or central) is a federation or confederation of trade unions in a country. Nearly every country in the world has a national trade union center, and many have more than one. In some regions, such a ...

s in

Turkey Turkey ( tr, Türkiye ), officially the Republic of Türkiye ( tr, Türkiye Cumhuriyeti, links=no ), is a transcontinental country located mainly on the Anatolian Peninsula in Western Asia, with a small portion on the Balkan Peninsula ...

. It was founded in 1967 as a breakaway union from the

Confederation of Turkish Trade Unions The Confederation of Turkish Trade Unions, ( tr, Türkiye İşçi Sendikaları Konfederasyonu) known as TÜRK-İŞ, is one of the four major national trade union centers in Turkey. It was created in 1952 and is the oldest of the four centers, havin ...

, and has a membership of 327,000. DİSK is affiliated with the

International Trade Union Confederation The International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC); german: Internationaler Gewerkschaftsbund (IGB), link=no; es, Confederación Sindical Internacional (CSI), link=no. is the world's largest trade union federation. History The federation w ...

World Federation of Trade Unions The World Federation of Trade Unions (WFTU) is an international federation of trade unions established in 1945. Founded in the immediate aftermath of World War Two, the organization built on the pre-war legacy of the International Federation o ...

Trade Union Advisory Committee to the OECD The Trade Union Advisory Committee to the OECD (TUAC) is the interface of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) with organized labour. TUAC has 59 affiliated trade union centres in 31 OECD countries, representing more ...

and the

European Trade Union Confederation The European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC) is the major trade union organisation representing workers at the European level. In its role as a European social partner, the ETUC works both in a consulting role with the European Commission and ...

Development until the ban in 1980

DİSK was founded by

Kemal Türkler Kemal Türkler (1926 – 22 July 1980) was a Turkish socialist labor union A trade union (labor union in American English), often simply referred to as a union, is an organization of workers intent on "maintaining or improving the cond ...

, Riza Kuas, İbrahim Güzelce, Kemal Nebioğlu and Mehmet Alpdündar representing Türkiye Maden-İş, Lastik-İş, Basin-İş, Türkiye Gıda-İş and Türk Maden-İş, respectively. All of these unions were until that time affiliated to Türk-İş, except Gida-İş which was independent.DISK (chapter in Trade unions in Turkey)
project of Friedrich Ebert Foundation; Project team: Filiz Aslan ... Oya Baydar (ed.). - 2. rev. ed., electronic ed. - Istanbul, 1998. - appr. 300 pages; accessed on 24 April 2011 DİSK logo 1967

DİSK was born at a time when relatively broader rights and freedoms had been recognized by the Constitution of 1961. The trade union acts of 1964 accepted the right of the workers to collective bargaining and strike, and revolutionary and socialist movements gained momentum on the politic arena. In fact, with the exception of Mehmet Alpdündar, the founders of DİSK were also among the founders of the socialist

Workers Party of Turkey Workers' Party of Turkey (''Türkiye İşçi Partisi'') was a Turkish political party, founded the 13 February 1961. It became the first socialist party in Turkey to win representation in the national parliament. It was banned twice (after the mi ...

(TİP) in 1961. The first general assembly meeting of DİSK took place in

Istanbul ) , postal_code_type = Postal code , postal_code = 34000 to 34990 , area_code = +90 212 (European side) +90 216 (Asian side) , registration_plate = 34 , blank_name_sec2 = GeoTLD , blank_i ...

on 15 June 1967. Among the resolutions adopted at the congress were: support to the campaign „War Against Hunger" launched by the student organizations and establishing a solidarity fund with the assistance of larger unions to help the weaker ones. By 1967, 6 other unions (Turizm-İş, Kimya-İş, Bank-İş, EMSIS, TADSIS, Gaziantep Tekstil) had joined DİSK, which reported its total membership as 65,730. In 1970 the Justice Party (AP) and the

Republican People's Party The Republican People's Party ( tr, Cumhuriyet Halk Partisi, , acronymized as CHP ) is a Kemalist and social-democratic political party in Turkey which currently stands as the main opposition party. It is also the oldest political party i ...

(CHP) submitted to the parliament a draft law that would endanger the existence of any other confederation than Türk-İş. The board of DİSK convened on 3 June 1970 and decided to form resistance committees in accordance with the right of resistance in the Constitution. On 15 and 16 June the workers employed at enterprises organized by DİSK stopped work and leaving the factories started to march. This action ended with the declaration of martial law in Istanbul in the evening of 16 June. DİSK leaders and a large number of workers were arrested and tried at military courts. The law was annulled by the

Constitutional Court A constitutional court is a high court that deals primarily with constitutional law. Its main authority is to rule on whether laws that are challenged are in fact unconstitutional, i.e. whether they conflict with constitutionally established ...

on 9 February 1972. The confederation reported a total of 88,650 members as of end-1970. DİSK leaders were again arrested after the military intervention on 12 March 1971, and the work of the confederation slowed down markedly during this period. Yet, further trade unions joined DİSK, raising the total membership of the confederation to 270,000 as of 1973. The period after the fifth congress (21–24 May 1975) witnessed a boost in the popularity of DİSK, which now counted 25 members. The most important growth occurred with the affiliation of the former Türk-İş member Genel-İş under the leadership of

Abdullah Baştürk Abdullah may refer to: * Abdullah (name), a list of people with the given name or surname * Abdullah, Kargı, Turkey, a village * ''Abdullah'' (film), a 1980 Bollywood film directed by Sanjay Khan * '' Abdullah: The Final Witness'', a 2015 Pakis ...

. By this time the membership of DİSK was close to 600,000. In 1977 participation to the First of May demonstration organized by DİSK was even larger than the previous year, but the peaceful demonstration ended in a blood bath when unknown persons opened fire to the crowd toward the end of the rally and 35 people were killed. On the 6th congress of the confederation that was held on 22–26 December 1977 Abdullah Baştürk was elected as the head of DİSK.

Fehmi Işıklar Fehmi is a Turkish given name for males. It is Turkish spelling of the Arabic name and word Fahmi (Arabic: فهمي) which means "understanding, comprehension, knowing". People named Fehmi include: * Fehmî (1564–1596), Ottoman poet * Fehmi ...

became the secretary general. In 1978 DİSK organized a First of May rally again in

Taksim Square Taksim Square ( tr, Taksim Meydanı, ), situated in Beyoğlu in the European part of Istanbul, Turkey, is a major tourist and leisure district famed for its restaurants, shops, and hotels. It is considered the heart of modern Istanbul, with the ...

and there was a large participation in spite of the bloody events of the previous year. By 1979

martial law Martial law is the imposition of direct military control of normal civil functions or suspension of civil law by a government, especially in response to an emergency where civil forces are overwhelmed, or in an occupied territory. Use Martia ...

had expanded to cover also Istanbul, and the First of May celebrations were held in Izmir, while in 1980 the celebrations were totally banned. On 22 July 1980 the founder of DİSK and chairman of Türkiye Maden-İş,

was killed in front of his house in Merter, Istanbul.İşçi sınıfı tarihi için bir başlangıç
, History of DİSK (Turkish); accessed on 24 April 2011 The public prosecutor in

Bakırköy Bakırköy is a neighbourhood, municipality and district on the European side of Istanbul, Turkey. The quarter is densely populated, has a residential character and is inhabited by an upper middle class population. The municipality of Bakırköy ...

indicted the alleged

right-wing Right-wing politics describes the range of Ideology#Political ideologies, political ideologies that view certain social orders and Social stratification, hierarchies as inevitable, natural, normal, or desirable, typically supporting this pos ...

militants Ünal Osmanağaoğlu, Aydın Eryılmaz, Abdülsamet Karakuş and İsmet Koçak for being involved in the murder. Bakırköy Heavy Penal Court 2 twice decided on acquittal of Osmanağaoğlu. Each time the

Court of Cassation A court of cassation is a high-instance court that exists in some judicial systems. Courts of cassation do not re-examine the facts of a case, they only interpret the relevant law. In this they are appellate courts of the highest instance. In th ...

quashed the verdict. On 1 December 2010 Bakırköy Heavy Penal Court 2 ruled that the case had to be dropped because of

lapse of time ''Lapse of Time'' is a 1982 Chinese novella by Wang Anyi. The novella follows Ouyang Duanli, a strong-minded Shanghai woman who worked hard to support her and her husband's large family during the Cultural Revolution when they were attacked as "f ...

. Before the 1980 coup, four main trade union federations with differing political orientations dominated the labor scene. The main union organization, the

(''Türkiye İşçi Sendikaları Konfederasyonu''—Türk-İş) was politically moderate, adhering to legal limits on its activities. The other major union group, the Confederation of Progressive Trade Unions of Turkey (''Türkiye Devrimci İşçi Sendikaları Konfederasyonu''—DİSK), originated from a faction of Türk-İş in 1967. DİSK was much smaller than Türk-İş but more militant. In addition, small numbers of workers belonged to the pro-Islamist Confederation of Turkish Just Workers' Unions (''Türkiye Hak İşçi Sendikaları Konfederasyonu''—Hak-İş) and the right-wing Confederation of Turkish Nationalist Workers' Unions (''Türkiye Milliyetçi İşçi Sendikaları Konfederasyonu''—MİSK).Human Resources and Trade Unions
chapter in the article on Turkey of the US Library of Congress; accessed on 24 April 2011

The 12 September period

The 1980 military intervention severely restricted trade union activities. Following the 1980 coup, the military government prohibited collective bargaining until May 1984. After 12 September 1980, the

National Security Council A national security council (NSC) is usually an executive branch governmental body responsible for coordinating policy on national security issues and advising chief executives on matters related to national security. An NSC is often headed by a n ...

suspended the activities of DİSK and its affiliated unions. Their assets were confiscated and put under trustee administration. 52 DİSK leaders were arrested and put on trial with the demand of death penalty on the grounds that they had „attempted to demolish the constitutional regime". By the time the military court delivered its verdict in 1986, the DISK trial had 1,477 defendants. The DISK trial was one of many mass trials that progressed ponderously through the military courts, presided over by high-ranking officers of the Turkish armed forces. The trial at Istanbul Military Court 2 ended on 24 December 1986. The court sentenced 264 trade unionists and experts to sentences between five years, six months and 15 years, eight months' imprisonment. The military court decided in 1981 to close DİSK and ban its members. This ruling was appealed and in 1991 the Military Court of Cassation overruled this decision and acquitted the union leaders. Thus DİSK was able to resume its activities after an interval of 12 years.

New formation in 1992

The 8th general assembly of DİSK was held on 19–22 January 1992. Kemal Nebioglu was elected chairman and Süleyman Çelebi secretary general. By 1994 DİSK had 16 affiliates, 14 of which had organized over 10% of the workers in their branches, and had a total of 330,000 members. DİSK has 11 representative offices in Belgium (European Representative Office),

Ankara Ankara ( , ; ), historically known as Ancyra and Angora, is the capital of Turkey. Located in the central part of Anatolia, the city has a population of 5.1 million in its urban center and over 5.7 million in Ankara Province, maki ...

Adana Adana (; ; ) is a major city in southern Turkey. It is situated on the Seyhan River, inland from the Mediterranean Sea. The administrative seat of Adana province, it has a population of 2.26 million. Adana lies in the heart of Cilicia, wh ...

, Izmir,

Bursa ( grc-gre, Προῦσα, Proûsa, Latin: Prusa, ota, بورسه, Arabic:بورصة) is a city in northwestern Turkey and the administrative center of Bursa Province. The fourth-most populous city in Turkey and second-most populous in the ...

Antalya la, Attalensis grc, Ἀτταλειώτης , postal_code_type = Postal code , postal_code = 07xxx , area_code = (+90) 242 , registration_plate = 07 , blank_name = Licence plate ...

Edirne Edirne (, ), formerly known as Adrianople or Hadrianopolis ( Greek: Άδριανούπολις), is a city in Turkey, in the northwestern part of the province of Edirne in Eastern Thrace. Situated from the Greek and from the Bulgarian borders ...

, Diyarbakir,

Samsun Samsun, historically known as Sampsounta ( gr, Σαμψούντα) and Amisos (Ancient Greek: Αμισός), is a city on the north coast of Turkey and is a major Black Sea port. In 2021, Samsun recorded a population of 710,000 people. The cit ...

, Izmit and

Gaziantep Gaziantep (), previously and still informally called Aintab or Antep (), is a major city and capital of the Gaziantep Province, in the westernmost part of Turkey's Southeastern Anatolia Region and partially in the Mediterranean Region, approxi ...

. During the 11th Congress between 28 and 30 July 2000 Süleyman Çelebi was elected to chair DİSK. The following trade unions are members of DİSK:

References

*{{cite book , year = 2005 , title = Trade Unions of the World , editor = ICTUR , editor-link = International Centre for Trade Union Rights , display-editors=etal , edition = 6th , publisher = John Harper Publishing , location = London, UK , isbn = 0-9543811-5-7

External links

DİSK
official site. 1967 establishments in Turkey European Trade Union Confederation International Trade Union Confederation National trade union centers of Turkey Organizations based in Istanbul Peoples' Democratic Congress Trade unions established in 1967

Development until the ban in 1980

The 12 September period

New formation in 1992

See also

References

External links