Could you tell us a little about yourself and your involvement and activism in trade unions?
I was actively involved in trade union struggle from November 1992 to June 2017. I organized in the health sector and began my struggle within Tüm Sağlık-Sen1. Later, I served in SES2 as a workplace representative, board member, coordinator for women’s work, and regional coordinator.
After that, I held positions as a member of the KESK3 Executive Board and Central Executive Committee Women’s Secretary, participated in the World March of Women Turkey Coordination, and was a member of the Human Rights Association (İHD) and the DTK4 Women’s Assembly.
Throughout my years of struggle, I actively participated in strikes, mass protests, and campaigns for democratic rights. During this period, I faced detentions, investigations, removal from duty, salary cuts, and various judicial and administrative pressures. In June 2017, I was dismissed from my job by a statutory decree (KHK5). I was prosecuted and convicted. After my sentence was completed, I had to leave the country. However, despite all forms of repression, I never abandoned organized struggle.
As a Kurdish woman, an Alevi, a working-class person, and someone who defends a democratic socialist trade union perspective, I tried to uphold a line based on women’s liberation, equality, and a people-centered approach. Over many years, I took part in numerous democratic initiatives that were often criminalized.
For the past approximately nine years, I have been living in exile in Germany. I am an honorary member of ver.di6, affiliated with DGB7.
How do you assess the relationship between labor struggle and the Kurdish question in Northern Kurdistan since the 1990s?
The labor struggle in Northern Kurdistan, especially since the 1990s, has become an important social ground not only for the pursuit of economic rights but also for demands for democracy, equality, freedom, and peace. Workers and public employees in the region have organized not only around wages, insurance, and working conditions, but also around issues of identity, language, culture, and freedom of belief.
Over the past fifty years, labor relations in the region have been shaped by war policies, forced migration, states of emergency (OHAL8), village evacuations, neoliberal economic policies, and the political atmosphere created by the Kurdish question. For this reason, evaluating the labor struggle in Northern Kurdistan solely within a classical trade union framework is insufficient. In the region, class struggle and the national democratic struggle have often converged on the same social line.
Following the 1980 military coup in Turkey, the trade union movement faced severe repression nationwide. The closure of DİSK9, the detention of unionists, torture, and arrests were aimed at weakening the labor movement. In the Kurdish provinces, these pressures were further deepened by the state of emergency regime, extrajudicial killings, security-oriented policies, and forced displacement. As a result, the economic and social structure of the region was profoundly transformed.
The 1990s marked a period of global restructuring of neoliberal capitalism. After the dissolution of the Soviet Union, capitalism was presented on a global scale as the “only alternative.” Under the direction of international financial institutions such as the IMF and the World Bank, policies of privatization, subcontracting, flexible labor, and union suppression were widely implemented.
During this process, the historical gains of workers were rolled back, while capital became more international, more organized, and more protected. The global trade union movement also experienced a significant fragmentation. In the place of militant union traditions, conciliatory and bureaucratic models were promoted. In this way, attempts were made to render the contradiction between labor and capital invisible.
Neoliberal policies implemented in Turkey were also part of this global transformation. In particular, in Kurdistan, war policies and neoliberal economic restructuring were carried out simultaneously. Agriculture, livestock, and collective production relations were weakened; through village evacuations and forced migration, people were transformed into cheap urban labor.
The historical production culture of Kurdish society had been shaped around collective labor, solidarity, and communal life. However, security policies, dam projects, mining operations, and economic encirclement largely dismantled this social structure and pushed workers into precarious working conditions.
For this reason, the labor struggle in Northern Kurdistan has represented not only an economic struggle, but also an identity-based, cultural, social, and political form of resistance.
How did the relationship between capital and labor take shape in Northern Kurdistan?
Following the post-1980 neoliberal transformation, the state pursued two main policies in the region: a security-centered economic model and the creation of low-cost and non-organized labor.
For many years, the region was considered a “risky area” from the perspective of capital. For this reason, rather than large-scale industrial investments, subcontracting systems, state-supported tenders, the construction sector, the security economy, textile workshops, and seasonal agricultural labor became predominant.
In particular, in cities such as Diyarbakır, Batman, Urfa, Van, and Mardin, within organized industrial zones, a significant portion of workers were employed under low wages and without union protection. State investment incentives were often structured around cheap labor, tax advantages, and unregulated working conditions.
Throughout this entire process, Kurdish workers have been subjected both to the pressures of capitalist exploitation and to political repression based on their identity. For this reason, class struggle and the national democratic struggle did not develop separately in the region. Workers sought to organize their struggle within a socially oriented trade union framework, linking it with demands for democracy, freedom, and peace.
How did the relationship between the national liberation struggle and the class struggle develop?
Although the socialist movement that developed in Turkey also existed in Northern Kurdistan with certain differences, the socialist revolutionary movement after the 1960s, despite frequently discussing the international right to self-determination, maintained a consistently distant stance toward the Kurdish question.
The execution of Turkish revolutionaries, the tradition and experience of the Turkish Workers’ Party, internal debates within revolutionary organizations, the Bloody 1st of May, and the organization of the working class were not only observed in western Turkey but also in Northern Kurdistan in the east. Alongside the rights of labor and workers, demands for the right of nations to self-determination, identity, language, and cultural rights were being shaped within a real socialist perspective.
While organizing among the people in villages through solidarity and collective production practices (imece), the group known as “The Students” (also known as “The Apoists”10) were also building organization within the population. At the same time, some Kurdish revolutionaries organized wage workers in the limited number of factories, mining and oil production sites, construction sectors, and agricultural fields in Northern Kurdistan, working alongside them.
For this reason, from the 1980s onward, the rising Kurdish freedom movement opened up an important social space that addressed not only identity and cultural rights but also poverty, inequality, and state repression.
The trade union struggle, the right to live in one’s mother tongue, democratic rights, human rights, women’s liberation and anti-militarism have, for many workers and public employees, merged into a shared political ground. For this reason, especially in the 1990s, the trade union movement in the region did not remain limited to purely economic demands. Investigations into enforced disappearances, resistance to village evictions and opposition to environmental destruction were all issues that were addressed. Others, such as the right to public services in one’s mother tongue, women’s liberation and the call for peace, were forcefully brought to the agenda. The labor struggle in the region increasingly became one of the key dynamics of social opposition. In particular, public sector trade unions were seen not only as professional organizations but also as part of the broader struggle for a democratic society.
What was the role of women workers in the trade union struggle?
Women were one of the most dynamic forces of the labor struggle in Northern Kurdistan. Women working in the fields of health, education, and municipal services played especially active roles within the trade union movement.
In the early years, the focus was mainly on carrying out a common struggle against social oppression and resisting repression through legal and constitutional means, as well as through international conventions to which Turkey is a signatory. However, as the struggle continued uninterrupted, we as women—one of its most dynamic driving forces—made significant progress in using national agreements, constitutional rights, and legal gaps in labor law, particularly in advancing the women’s struggle.
We exposed practices such as virginity tests in detention and gender-based torture. The women’s struggle was also a “shirt of fire,” and we had to shed it in order to move forward.
Women fought not only against labor exploitation but also against male domination, state repression, and broader social inequalities. For this reason, women’s liberation became an inseparable part of the trade union struggle.
Thanks to women’s organizing work, concepts such as: co-leadership (co-chair system), women’s quota, women’s assemblies, gender equality and policies against male violence became more visible within the trade union sphere. In particular, the political consciousness created by the Kurdish women’s movement had a significant impact on the trade union struggle as well.
How did state repression affect the trade union movement?
In Northern Kurdistan, trade union activities were for many years evaluated within the framework of security policies. Many unionists were subjected to investigations; detentions, exiles, and dismissals from duty were common.
During the states of emergency (OHAL), demands for democratic rights were often framed as “security issues.” Workers who expressed demands for peace, in particular, faced severe repression. Dozens of teachers, health workers, and public employees were killed by JİTEM11 and paramilitary structures, including Hezbollah. These cases are also documented in reports by various human rights organizations.
Despite this, workers did not abandon organized struggle. In the region, trade unionism was seen not only as a pursuit of economic rights but also as a struggle to protect human dignity, identity, and collective memory.
Kurdish workers described the 1990s as “wearing a shirt of fire,” and they carried out a particularly intense process of organization during this period. In 1995, KESK gained its official status and began organizing across all sectors in Northern Kurdistan.
The main organizing fields of KESK and its affiliated unions included: teachers, Ministry of Education institutions, and universities (Eğitim Sen), Ministry of Health and social services workers (SES), municipal workers (Tüm Bel-Sen), highway and road workers (Yapı Yol-Sen), postal and communication workers (Haber-Sen), agriculture and forestry workers (Tarım Orman-Sen), workers in the Presidency of Religious Affairs sector (DİVES), state theaters, museums, etc. (Kültür Sanat-Sen).
Between 2012 and 2014, during the democratic peace talks initiated with Mr. Öcalan, the labor movement remained one of the most active fields of democratic mobilization, as in earlier years. Trade unions contributed to democratization and the drafting of a new constitution through workshops, conferences, panels, and rallies.
Regarding the Kobane and Rojava resistance periods—expressions of self-determined and autonomous resistance of peoples—KESK and its affiliated unions played a leading and participatory role, not only in Northern Kurdistan but across Turkey.
After the AKP and MHP ended the negotiation process, policies aimed at suppressing all segments of society—especially Kurdish workers, leftists, socialists, revolutionaries, academics, journalists, women’s rights activists, and pro-peace and democracy forces—were implemented through detentions, arrests, and dismissals via statutory decrees (KHK). With fabricated testimonies and unlawful evidence, workers, KESK and DİSK members, and Kurdish laborers were targeted in an attempt to bring them under control.
Thousands of workers continue to live under the pressure of KHK-related dismissals. Families, women, children, and Kurdish society as a whole are subjected to repressive state practices. Nevertheless, the struggle for resistance and the defense of rights continues without interruption.
What are the main challenges of the labor movement today?
Firstly, among the key challenges facing the trade union movement, we can cite the restriction and non-implementation of democratic and constitutional rights. More specifically, in the world of work, we are confronted with the fragmentation of working life, various forms of employment relationships and subcontracting practices, precarious and insecure forms of employment, the invisibility of women’s work and a labour market based on gender distinctions.
We are witnessing policies of low wages and de-unionisation, as well as trade union practices dictated by political motives, and a lack of protection against fatal accidents at work. Migration, poverty and seasonal work are a constant challenge for us.
In particular, young workers and women workers are employed under severe conditions of insecurity. In addition, war policies and economic crises further worsen the living conditions of workers.
Despite all these pressures, the labor struggle continues. History has shown that no system of repression can last indefinitely in the face of an organized people.
After the 2000s, relations with European trade union movements rapidly expanded. Institutions such as ETUC (European Trade Union Confederation), ITUC (International Trade Union Confederation), and ILO (International Labor Organization), as well as the World March of Women Coordination, have been among the organizations with which we have had the most sustained dialogue and membership engagement.
How do you view the labor struggle in Northern Kurdistan today?
The labor struggle in Northern Kurdistan is not limited to wages and working conditions; it is a historical struggle deeply intertwined with demands for democracy, identity, women’s liberation, equality among peoples, and social justice.
Although this struggle has at times faced repression, arrests, and exile, the culture of solidarity among workers, the will to organize, and the pursuit of freedom have continued to persist. Today as well, the future of the labor movement depends on strengthening collective solidarity among peoples, reinforcing a women’s liberation perspective, and developing democratic forms of social organization. Despite all repressive policies and conditions, this struggle continues uninterrupted, with growing awareness and expanding scope.
1 A union representing health and social service workers in Turkey
2 Sağlık ve Sosyal Hizmet Emekçileri Sendikası (Health and Social Services Workers Union)
3 Confederation of Public Employees’ Trade Unions)
4 Democratic Society Congress
5 Kanun Hükmünde Kararname (Decree with the Force of Law)
6 German trade union for the service sector
7 German confederation of trade unions
8 olağanüstü hâl (Martial law and state of emergency in Turkey)
9 Confederation of Revolutionary Trade Unions of Turkey
10 named after “Apo”, Abdullah Öcalan, who started this movement with his fellow comrades
11 Turkey’s Gendarmerie Intelligence and Counter-terrorism Department, which was responsible for the extrajudicial killings of 1990s among other crimes