STUDY Trade Unions in Turkey 2018 ALPKAN B İ RELMA November 2018 n One out of every four workers in Turkey was protected by a collective bargaining agreement at the end of 1980s when the almost continuous decline of the coverage began. The lowest membership rate was 6 per cent in 2013; since then it has risen slightly to 7.6 per cent in 2017. n The number of union workers rose from 1 million to 1.8 million between January 2013 and July 2018. Approximately 500,000 of these new members are public-sec­tor subcontracted workers. Union density in the private sector(excluding public sub­contractors) stagnates. n Changes in much-criticized union laws of both workers and civil servants in 2012 are far from aligned with ILO conventions. The authorization process for collective bargaining of newly unionizing workers is still extremely difficult and the protection against unfair dismissal on the grounds of trade union membership has been weak­ened. Additionally, civil servants still do not enjoy the right to collective bargaining because the system introduced in 2012 does not include negotiation but merely consultation. Among other problems, civil servants are still not allowed to strike. n The right to strike has also been further restricted. Since early 2017, the government has banned seven strikes by more than 150,000 workers. Due to this rising number of strike bans and arrests of union leaders, the International Trade Union Confeder­ation declared that Turkey was among the ten worst countries for workers in 2018.