Zafer Aydın, Grevden İşgale Singer Eylemleri (1964-1967-1969), Istanbul: Sosyal Tarih Yayınları, 2015, 222 pp. ISBN: 978-605-4513-25-3.
Zafer Aydın’s Grevden İşgale Singer Eylemleri (1964-1967-1969) is a detailed study of labour history that examines three major struggles undertaken by Singer workers during the 1960s in the context of the transformation of the Turkish labour movement. The book treats the 1964 strike at the Singer Sewing Machines factory, the prolonged strike that began at Singer sales stores in 1967, and the occupation of the factory in 1969 as successive experiences of struggle. Bringing together testimonies from workers and trade unionists with union publications, newspapers, and archival documents from the period, Aydın traces the development of the struggles at Singer from strike action to the direct occupation of the factory.
The opening sections of the book situate the Singer struggles within the historical development of trade-union rights and the right to strike in Turkey. The 1964 Singer strike, which took place shortly after the right to strike and collective bargaining was legally guaranteed in 1963, is examined as one of the early workers’ actions of this new period. Through Maden-İş’s organising efforts, its union rivalry with Çelik-İş, pressure from the employer, and the difficulties encountered in organising the strike, Aydın reveals the tension between the existence of legal rights and workers’ ability to exercise those rights in practice at the workplace. The strike’s defeat is, in turn, treated as an important experience for understanding the subsequent struggles at Singer.
Another major part of the study concerns the strike at Singer sales stores in 1967, which lasted approximately five and a half months. Aydın does not regard this struggle, which failed to produce the desired economic results, simply as an unsuccessful strike. The organisation of white-collar employees against the employer’s authoritarian approach to management and working conditions stands out as one of the strike’s important characteristics. The book thus examines the struggle at Singer not only in terms of demands for wages and social rights, but also as a collective challenge to the employer’s authority over the workplace.
At the centre of the book, the 1969 occupation of the Singer factory demonstrates how the accumulated experience of earlier struggles developed into a more radical form of direct action. Faced with employer pressure, dismissals, and attempts to obstruct union organisation after workers sought to change unions and organise with Maden-İş, the workers occupied the factory. The clandestine organising, division of responsibilities, and preparations for the action preceding the occupation are described in detail through testimonies. In addition to the recognition of Maden-İş, the workers’ demands included the reinstatement of dismissed workers, shorter working hours, job security, wage increases, and improvements in various social rights.
Aydın interprets the Singer occupation as an experience in which workers defended their freedom to choose their union and their right to have a say in the workplace through direct struggle. The temporary occupation by workers of a site of production owned by the employer directly called the employer’s managerial authority into question. Although the Singer experience did not develop into a lasting experiment in workers’ self-management, it nevertheless constitutes an important experience of occupation in which workers intervened in existing relations of power and decision-making at the workplace and expanded the boundaries of trade-union freedom, workplace democracy, and direct action.
Grevden İşgale Singer Eylemleri also relates these struggles to the rising labour, student, and broader social opposition movements of the 1960s. Singer’s status as an American-owned company gave the actions of 1967 and 1969, in particular, a broader significance within the anti-imperialist political climate of the period, while the book also examines the solidarity established between student and youth movements and Singer workers. In this respect, the study approaches the trajectory from the 1964 strike to the 1969 factory occupation not merely as the history of trade-union struggle within a single company, but as an important historical experience illustrating the transformation of workers’ forms of organisation, direct action, workplace democracy, and intervention in employer authority in Turkey.