Labour Movements in Ottoman Empire

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Because of the Great War(World War 1), in many societes around the word has been reshaped. Some of the manpower used in military factories under strict conditions. During those era not only men but women is also used for increasing the work output. Especially, in Anatolia region workers’ distress burst into a wave of strikes and protests that contributed to political revolts.

Introduction

The First World War was so devastating to Ottoman Empire economy and itself. During the October 1914 to November 1918 Ottoman Empire had to mobilizate highest amount of men and resources in its history. The First World War created new economic and social realities in the Middle East. The exigencies and demands of involvement in the war led to dramatic changes in the functioning of the state and its relations. Labor during those times was directly affected by the war due to new high end economic demands.Gender, ethnicity, occupation, industry, and level of skill all came together in complex and unique ways to shape the wartime experience of laborers throughout the Middle East..

Labour Strikes

The War caused unfavorable developments on both political and economical weakening to defated countries(Axis Force). The unsustainable economy created new social constructs against the ruling regime around the World. As We could even see on Allied Force countries, the situation was worse in the defated countries like Germany,Ottoman,Austria etc. Especially in Ottoman the concept of worker has not yet located on the Ottomans’ minds, but the newly emerging proletariat groups could show their negative treatments to the state and the company owners.

First Strike

After 1839 the Tanzimat Reform happened, Ottoman Empire had their first workers movements. These events caused by workers who was against mass production due to less labour demand in the factories. In 1871, workers' foundations to be founded in the Ottoman Empire to help needy workers. After 1872 workers strikes started to arise in the empire. The First strike happaned in Tophane/Istanbul with approximately 50,000 workers. In 1894, arsenal workers founded "Amele-i Osmani Cemiyeti" (Union of Ottoman Workers); however, it later dissolved. Following the parliamentary monarchy founded in 1908, workers' strikes spread all over the country. In order not to intimidate foreign capital, working hours were regulated in 1909 by law. Workers' unions began to be founded starting in 1912. However, the Young Turks government banned all workers' movements in 1912 under the pretext of the Balkan War.

The Strikes of 1908

Between July 30th and December 20th 1908 there were at least 119 strikes in cities including Constantinople, Thessaloníki, Smyrna, Beirut, Mytilene, Varna, Samsun, Skopje, Bitola, Alexandroupoli, Aydin, Afyon, Gevgelija, Kavala, Drama, Eskisehir, Ankara, Konya, Eregli, Zonguldak, Manise, Adrianople, Svilengrad, Mitrovica, Zbekche, Damascus, Riyaq, Aleppo, Balikesir, Diyarbakir, Hareke, Xanthi, Adana and Jerusalem Workers from all sectors took part on the demonstrations.

The total number of participations is unknown although there were only 119 recorded.However these include some of the strongest and most massive of the entire strike wave.

Avraham Benaroya

On those times Avram Benaroya, an active participant in the workers movement,recorded that membership of the trade unions, which barely existed before 1908, had risen by 1910 to between 125,000 and 150,000;4 and this was a year when the workers’ movement was suffering repression. In 1908 mass strike is caused by struggles of working class due to the economical problems. It was mostly higher wage and better working codition demands. There were also demands for the recognition of strike committees and spontaneous workers’ organizations as well as the newly formed trade unions, along with demands opposing separate negotiations in different workplaces

Workers at the Samsun Tobacco Factory in the early 20th century.

while workers harboured certain illusions in promises made by the Society of Union and Progress during the July revolt, in many cases they did not back down when confronted with obstruction by state forces. At the center of the mass strike wave were the struggles of the railroad, dock and tobacco workers. Strikes by dock workers spread rapidly to factories and caused many other strikes. Transportation sector had power to stop imports/exports and transportation of the goods and its distribution. Due to those facts, this strikes turn encouraged other sectors of the working class to join the struggle.

Labour Day

On May 1, 1909, in Thessaloniki, Labor Day was celebrated in the Ottoman Empire for the first time. On May 1, 1921, the Turkish Socialist Party announced a general strike. Trains, tramways and ferries were halted in Istanbul, which was then occupied by Allied forces. A red flag was raised in the main office of the party and the International Socialist Anthem was played all day. Accepted as Labor Day by almost all countries, May 1 dates back to 1856 when Australian stonemasons marched to parliament to demand an eight-hour-shift in Melbourne. Now, May 1 has turned into a show of strength for the socialist movement. After the establishment of the modern-day Republic of Turkey, strikes snowballed due to the harsh economic conditions of the "single party" era. Strikes and workers' movements were banned by the government in 1933, those who broke this law were punished severely, and May 1 celebrations were banned. Once the democratic system began to function in Turkey following the 1950s, workers' rights started to recover

Labour Movements During&After the World War One

The Ottoman Empire had a significantly underdeveloped industrial infrastructure comparing to major beligrents of the war.Of only 282 factories listed in the 1915 census, 78 produced foodstuffs, 78 were spinning and weaving mills, and 55 were paper and printing mills. Other important sectors included brick, glass, leather, and chemicals. Among the more sizeable of these industrial establishments were state-owned factories, which produced a variety of war materials. Apart from these industrial establishments, numerous small-scale workshops, mills, tanneries, etc. were also scattered throughout the empire. Upon the announcement of military mobilization in August 1914, the Ottoman government took control of railroads, mines, and industrial enterprises owned by foreigners and many Ottoman civilians. It is also used for supplying the military with engines, equipment, and raw materials for use in factories critical for the war effort. Under military control these factories had enormous increase in production.The state also opened new workshops to manufacture clothes and shoes for soldiers. Despite these measures, however, the empire’s limited industrial capacity could not meet the ever-increasing demands of the war. The Ottomans continued to depend mostly on imports from its wartime allies – Germany and Austria-Hungary – for armaments, munitions, and other war materials.

Workers During the War

World War One caused drop in the econonomy of the Ottoman Empire such as distruption of the domestic labor market. Most of the men called for participation in the army.The misprediction of the war time casued many imbalances of the industry and the workers. The army drafted many skilled laborers to work in industrial establishments under sanction of martial law. They were not permitted to leave their places of employment or to change employers. The military factories was a way to prevent workers to face brutality of the war, they had to face long hours under the extraordinary pressures of wartime demands. They had fixed salaries for the workers. As the war dragged on, the government and the army high command took some modest steps to improve the conditions of workers employed in these factories. They received a small raise in February 1917 and were provided bread and occasionally other necessities at subsidized prices. In some cases, pensions were granted to widows and orphans of workers who died during their employment in military factories. The war caused devastating economical problems to works which demands manpower. So many factories lost their skilled workers and had to replace with unskilled workers or to shut down. Female and child labor employed in those cases due to the wartime shortages. Furthermore, the government and the army high command employed rank and file prisoners of war in various jobs throughout the empire, including agriculture, transportation, and railroad construction. In 1918, a porter’s monthly salary in Istanbul ranged between 75 and 90 Ottoman liras, almost equal to that of a major general.

Due to increase cost of living, wage raises failed to keep pace to deal with the inflation which caused extreme gap between cost of living and salaries. By January 1919, cost of living in Istanbul for an ordinary family raised 2,000 percent in comparison with June 1914. With the current data obtained from the records, many working class families failed to maintain their pre-war standarts of living.

Industrial Unrest

The war years did not see any significant strikes, stoppages, or other kinds of collective actions. With the mobilization in August 1914, the goverment declared martial law, censored the press, and imposed severe measures to prevent any public assemblies and demonstrations that would disturb the public order. In the centers, the state takes control over public life grew stricter. There is only 3 listed strikes occured during those times, in 1915,1917 and 1918. The workers organizations opinions were disregarded and they were not included in the decision-making process of the wartime administration and did not play a significant role in the conduct of the war.. In the years following World War I, however, trade unions and socialist parties experienced growth in membership, activism, and visibility. Bank clerks,tramway workers and printers went on strike due to inadequate wages and better work conditions. In the 1919 there exist 13 strikes.Workers’ post-war resentment stemmed primarily from deteriorating living conditions. To a considerable degree, however, it also originated in a sense of inequality, which was reinforced by the conspicuous wartime and post-war lifestyles of the nouveaux riche

Women and the Labour Force

During the war years, women entered the labor force in significant numbers, mostly due to the military service of male family members and economical problems. Many factories and military workshops hired women to replace male workers drafted by the army. Women replaced urban centers sectors which used to solely for males such as street cleaning. At the capital of the empire, a civil society organization, Society for the Employment of Ottoman Muslim Women was founded under Ottoman Ministry of War with the purpose of helping Muslim women find employment to prevent their fall into prostitution Close to 20,000 women found employment through this organization.

Even for relatively well-to-do families whose male members were drafted into the army, privations became facet of the life. The war caused disappearance of male members of the household, which used to help economically to household borught a decline in social status,which, in turn, compelled women to work in various sectors of the urban economy for long hours and very low wages. The abundance of female labor made employers increasingly unwilling to negotiate over wages or working conditions. Female workers who normally received half the salary of male workers continued to be poorly paid throughout the war.

References

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