A crucial moment in Turkish political life and labour history: The initiative for the Labourers Party of Turkey

Abstract

The aim of this article is to answer fundamental questions about the initiative to form the Labourers Party of Turkey (TÇP), the foundation for which was prepared by Türk-İş labour confederation in 1962 but backtracked at the last minute. Though never having passed the level of an initiative, TÇP is important for both Turkish political life and labour history. Because it coincides with an interesting historical moment when Türk-İş, known as a representative of U.S.-style trade unionism in Turkey, seemed to be moving out of this orbit for the first time. This fact makes it necessary to question from various aspects how Türk-İş, which has adopted an "above parties" unionism as principle both before the TÇP initiative and afterwards, has decided to form a political party in 1962. Main questions that the article attempts to answer are which internal, external and objective reasons led Türk-İş to found a political party; the party's model and discourse; what kind of reactions it received; why the foundation was abandoned; what kind of impacts it had in the labour movement and political life.