As a collaborative work of the Communist Women and TKP Labor Centre, the Communist Party of Turkey’s (TKP) has published a report titled “Women's Labor in Turkey: Revealing the Exploitation of Women Workers”.
Women workers will never surrender to the exploitation and they have been always standing in the frontline of the struggle for an equal world without exploitation through in history, the report noted. It also reminds that the exploitation will increase and inequalities will be intensified unless the current system will not be changed and the people who want to change the current system have the responsibility to organize and strengthen working women’s struggle in Turkey on 8th March 2020.
The report provides statistics on the exploitation and current condition of women workers in Turkey, by analyzing the overall picture of the capitalist politics in the country.
Increasing technological developments significantly automatized industrial production; decreasing proportion of the occupations require physical work in the production sector, and the increasing proportion of the service industry enhanced the contribution of women labor into the workforce to 47,66%.
Because of the continuous crisis of capitalism and the fact that the working class is not organized, working for lower wages compared to men became almost normal for women. This situation made women's labor necessary for the governments’ and corporations’ strategies of development and growth based on low wages.
Closing the social gaps between genders is not the main goal of current employers and the politicians who represent the bourgeoisie. The populist policies and statements on the inequality of men and women for the ruling class are to sustain economic growth by including women into the workforce, which is necessary for the capitalists. On the other hand, the means of oppression against women workers continue to exist to control women's labor easier.
UNEMPLOYMENT OF WOMEN
Women constitute more than half of the actual workforce in Turkey. However, the rate of women's labor force participation is dramatically lower when compared to the women population in the country: The contribution of the women labor into the workforce is 33.9% whereas men are involved in the work-life by 71.6%.
The unemployment rate is higher for women than men in Turkey. The actual unemployment rate is 27% for women, and unemployment risk for women is higher when compared with their male counterparts.
The unemployment rate in construction, heavy industry, and service sector is 13.1% for men, whereas it increases to 20.6% for women. The unemployment rate for youth is 24.5% for average at most, but it is 30.9% for women when young women are considered alone. In conclusion, almost one of every three women is unemployed in the current picture in Turkey.
The unemployment rate of women in Turkey is independent of the education level of women workers. 78.2% of men who finished higher education are employed, but this rate is only 57.7% for women.
Women are paid less although they have the same level of education compared to their male counterparts. On average, the earnings of women are equal to 60-70% of male workers' wages.
PRECARIOUS, FLEXIBLE AND UNREGISTERED WORK
Women consisting of one-third of the workforce in Turkey also experience the more precarious, flexible, and undeclared part of work-life. The majority of women are employed in the service sector, and the most unsafe industry for women is the agricultural sector. Textile and ready-made clothing industries are known as unregistered work and irregularities are widespread in the industry.
DISCRIMINATION AND VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN IN WORKPLACES
Violence against women is also another social problem for the working conditions of women workers. Sexual and non-sexual abuse in the workplace is not even considered as bad behavior for employers and jurisdiction in the country, which leaves women workers alone against violence.
Reporting and complaining about abuse can become a reason for layoffs for working women. Women workers are also oppressed with physical violence, which is considered as a means of oppression towards women workers who are evaluated as powerless for bosses.
Although marital status and parenthood are not important criteria for male workers, it is considered important for female workers since women have the role of housekeeping and motherhood.
RESPONSIBILITY TO ORGANIZE WORKING WOMEN
The report calls the workers to the struggle while it gives statistics and the current picture of the conditions of working women in Turkey.
The Communist Women and TKP’s Labor Centre call women workers as well as the whole working class of Turkey to fight inequality and injustice against working women. “People who want to change the system have the responsibility to organize and strengthen the struggle of the working women in Turkey,” the report concludes.
