Labour in the crisis

Crisis Upon Crisis: US Labour in a New Period

The organized working class in the US faces a new period of economic crisis and political mood shift. Long in crisis itself, the new situation appears to have thrown the American labour movement into internal turmoil and external paralysis at a time when workers need and, according to polls, want organisation more than ever. This paper will address the roots of heightened internal conflict in both the institutional nature of US unions and, more specifically, in the failure of the ‘new’ models of growth to overcome stagnation. It will look at the failure of both the 1996 ‘reform’ of the AFL-CIO and the 2005 split in that organization to produce significant growth and the resulting conflict at the top in the movement as a whole and some of the more aggressive ‘organizing’ unions. It will assess how this apparent paralysis is and will be impacted by the current crisis of accumulation, on the one hand, and the potential for growth, even rapid growth, in the dramatic shift of opinion in the US against the major institutions of capital in the last four years as well as the new political situation with the rising expectations and likely disappointments occasioned by the Obama victory, on the other. Underlying this analysis is the notion that labour movements grow in periods of intensified class conflict, possibly related the long waves of the economy. Drawing on history as well as recent trends, the tentative conclusion is that in what is likely to be a prolonged economic crisis, albeit with some ups and downs, union growth will likely come from a new period of general working class upsurge generated by the changing circumstances of this new period.

From 2001 Financial Crisis to Global Crisis : The impact of Capitalist Restructuring on Female Labour Power in Turkey

The most important social impact of the 2001 financial crisis in Turkey was a high level of unemployment. Throughout this process, most of the women workers became unemployed too. Women who lost their jobs were concentrated in two different areas: On the one side, women who had been in the most qualified labour power group such as banking and financal sectors; and on the other side women who were mostly part of unqualified workers in the small workshops and enterprises.

There were two important moments in the restructuring process of capital after the crisis in Turkey : Regulations in the financial sector and the restructuring of the manufacturing industry. Restructuring of financial sector involved deep financial restructuring of the public banks as well as of failed banks in public administration (SDIF banks); it also involved strengthening the private banking system and improving banking regulation and supervision. In the meantime, in the manufacturing industry, a tendency towards production of means of production was strengthened: The share of production of means of production in the total manufacturing production and in the export goods was increased.

The main interest of this paper will be the changing patterns of the capital accumulation process of Turkey in the last decade. By analysing this process, we will mainly focus on impacts of it on female labour power.

We will also attempt to conclude on how the current crisis would effect female labour power by taking into consideration that 2001 crisis had different impacts on different parts of female labour power in Turkey.