Translating from multiple sources: Labour legislation reform in Turkey

DOIhttp://doi.org/10.1111/j.1564-913X.2015.00033.x
AuthorUmut Riza Ozkan
Date01 June 2017
Published date01 June 2017
International Labour Review, Vol. 156 (2017), No. 2
Copyright © The author 2017
Journal compilation © International Labour Organization 2017
* School of Industrial Relations, University of Montreal, Quebec, email: umut.riza.ozkan@
umontreal.ca.
Responsibility for opinions expressed in signed articles rests solely with their authors, and
publication does not constitute an endorsement by the ILO.
Translating from multiple sources:
Labour legislation reform in Turkey
Umut Riza Ozkan*
Abstract. Building upon the recent scholarship on “travelling ideas” and “trans-
lation”, the author discusses how ILO and EU labour standards were conveyed
to Turkey’s political landscape by domestic actors and how those standards were
adjusted. The study rst analyses the motivations of the Commission that drafted
the 200 3 Labour Act, and of employer and labour organizations, for choosing to
draw on those international standards during the legislative reform process. It then
focuses on the institutional outcomes of the reform by examining how domestic
actors modied the international standards, while also preserving components of
the old labour legislation, as on severance pay.
In today’s globalized world, international organizations have become key
actors in diffusing the policy ideas, norms and institutions that they gener-
ate or adopt across different spaces. Throughout the 1990s, organizations like
the OECD, the World Bank and the IMF promoted neoliberal ideas and pol-
icies that undermined protective labour market regulation (e.g. on job security)
which, they argued, generated high non-wage labour costs that led to slower
economic growth and higher unemployment. The EU and the ILO, by contrast,
tried to counter this inuence by stressing the necessity of social protection
to balance the adverse effects of exibilization reforms at the national level.
Not surprisingly, neoliberal restructuring did trigger labour legislation
reforms in many countries, but their content did not fully reect the tenets
of neoliberalism. Rather, some of these reforms also incorporated protective
measures advocated by the EU and the ILO since both organizations set bind-
ing labour standards for their Member States. Accordingly, the Members of the
EU (and candidates for EU membership) are obliged to uphold the goals or
NOTES AND DEBATES
International Labour Review288
principles dened by EU Directives in their labour legislation. Similarly, ILO
member States which have ratied a Convention are required to transpose the
standards it embodies into their legislation.
Turkey is an example of a country in which the neoliberal inuence on
labour law reform was (to some extent) counterbalanced by the impact of the
ILO and the EU. In 2003, its Labour Act No. 1475, which had regulated in-
dividual employment relationships since the early 1970s, was superseded by
Labour Act No. 4857. The new Act incorporates not only exible employment
provisions but also protective measures supported by the EU and the ILO.
Drawing on recent scholarship about “travelling ideas” and “translation”,
this article considers why and how the idea of exicurity, embodied in inter-
national legal instruments generated by the ILO and the EU, was chosen and
conveyed to Turkey’s political landscape by domestic actors, and how this idea
was adjusted to the domestic context by those actors (Campbell, 2004; Djelic
and Sahlin-Andersson, 2006; Grinvalds, 2008).
Generally speaking, domestic policy think tanks play an important role
in importing travelling ideas from transnational knowledge networks into na-
tional policy debates. They are part of the epistemic communities formed by
“knowledge-based experts” who have authority and competence in a specic
area (Haas, 199 2, p. 3). Depending on the openness of such communities to
broader transnational knowledge networks, policy think tanks may rely on
their transnational connections to pick up ideas and related legal/policy instru-
ments (Weyland, 20 07). Accordingly, the members of Turkey’s tripartite “Sci-
entic Commission” – appointed by workers’ and employers’ organizations
and the State – chose to uphold ILO and EU standards on account of their
connectedness to international academic circles and professional networks in
the area of labour legislation.
While importing ideas from their transnational connections, such epistemic
bodies tend to select “travelling ideas” from international organizations that are
popular among the public. They may also try to ensure that those ideas and re-
lated standards enjoy the support of social groups that wield power in the do-
mestic political landscape. Furthermore, domestic epistemic bodies like Turkey’s
Scientic Commission are more inuential when government agencies lack suf-
cient expertise in a particular policy eld, making them open to “advice and
personnel from centers of academy” (Hall, 1989, p. 9). Their inuence increases
signicantly when the State and organizations of workers and employers dele-
gate power to them for designing institutional reforms. Such delegation of power
also opens the door for these epistemic communities to become heavily involved
in the local articulation of a travelling idea and related standards.
Societal actors, such as workers’ and employers’ organizations, and their
political battles may also affect the adoption of international standards into the
domestic institutional landscape, depending on their access to the political deci-
sion-making process. During their political struggles, societal actors may strategi-
cally use international instruments to promote their own political agenda (Woll
and Jacquot, 2010, p. 116). In some cases, when a societal actor is faced with a
blockade in its attempts to introduce the standards of an international organ-
ization as part of its domestic political agenda, it may adopt a strategy of oper-

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