Trade Unions at Whose Service? Coercive Partnerships and Partnership in Coercion in Turkey’s metal sector

Partnership in coercion is defined as cooperation between trade unions and employers at the expense of workers’ interests. It differs from coercive partnership by trade unions’ not mandatory but willing participation for furtherance of their own interests that are detached from those of their members. The legal changes after 1980 in Turkey created the basic conditions for both of these partnerships patterns. The analysis of the metal industry bargaining system reveals that there are three additional factors which rendered partnership in coercion possible in this sec-tor: employers’ needs, weak trade union internal democracy and competition among trade unions. However the examination of some other industries in Turkey shows that partnership patterns in the metal sector cannot be easily used to make generalizations. Yet it possible to consider them as extreme forms which reveal a fundamental feature of partnership clearly: the nature and outcome of partnership are determined by complex interdependencies which are beyond the immediate control of those who are actually becoming partners.