CONTENTS Labor Rights ___________________________________ 2 International Governmental Organizations & Non-Governmental Organizations For Labor Rights____________________________________3 Labor Rights

in Turkey____________________________4 Tourism and Hospitality Industry____________________5 Labor Rights in Tourism in Turkey___________________7

LABOR RIGHTS Labor rights are the protection of workers and respect for human life at workplaces. These rights are set of legal rights very related to human rights and regulate relations between workers and employers and these can be obtained under the law. Some essential parts of labor rights are right to unionize, right to equal pay for equal work, right to work safety. Especially, Unionization is very important weapon for workers because a single individual might not be able to get what (s) he expects. However, Unions take advantage of collective bargaining for better working conditions, better salaries etc. in favor of labors. Throughout the history, Labor right issues always have taken place in order for people to gain more interests at their workplace. For example, during the Middle Ages Peasants have tried to express how bad the conditions and demanded better working environment and wages. Since workers were discriminated (even today) and unequal conditions made Peasants revolt. With the hectic advancements in mechanics during 18th century, Industrial Revolution started to change society. People started to move cities from rural areas to join the revolution and capitalist system began to exploit workers, only profit went to the factory owners, business owners. Workers had no rights. During this period, Karl Marx was one of the supporters of Labor rights. Because he believed that an ideal society only could be achieved by labors. During this period, In England abuse of child labor has increase and a law about child labors was legislated in order to solve child worker situation. For instance, under the age of 9 cannot work, 9 -13 can work 8 hours a day and 13-18 can work 12 hours in a day. Labor Unions have played an important role to gain more rights. Growth of Labor Unions actually resulted from enhancements of industry in 1920s and in 1930s Great Depression led Unions come to power. In 1919, International Labor Organization was founded under the League of Nations and later joined United Nations. It has vital role to apply labor rights and tried to standardize labor rights practices all over the world. One of the important incidents is that in May 1, 1946 200 thousand people stop working in order to get 8hours work in a day. The American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO) is a national federation of labor unions in the United States and this contributed to May 1 a lot. AFL-CIO is an organization composed primarily of craft unions founded in 1886, and the CIO, a federation of industrial unions founded in 1938. Since labor right issue is very associated with human rights, in United Nation Declaration of Human Rights, importance of workers stated and two articles supported labor rights. These statements are;

Article 23 Everyone has the right to work, to free choice of employment, to just and favorable conditions of work and to protection against unemployment. Everyone, without any discrimination, has the right to equal pay for equal work. Everyone who works has the right to just and favorable remuneration ensuring for himself and his family an existence worthy of human dignity, and supplemented, if necessary, by other means of social protection. Everyone has the right to form and to join trade unions for the protection of his interests.

Article 24 Everyone has the right to rest and leisure, including reasonable limitation of working hours and periodic holidays with pay. International Governmental Organizations & Non-Governmental Organizations For Labor Rights International Labor Rights Organization (ILO) The ILO was created in 1919, as part of the Treaty of Versailles that ended World War I, to reflect the belief that universal and lasting peace can be accomplished only if it is based on social justice. The main aims of the ILO are to promote rights at work, encourage decent employment opportunities, enhance social protection and strengthen dialogue on work-related issues. Also, it has a unique structure among international organizations. It is an intergovernmental organization but its decision making bodies are tripartite. This means that all the ILO bodies, with only few exceptions are composed of representatives of workers and employers as well as governments. In the governing body of the ILO, governments have 50% of the vote, employers and workers 25% each. Also, each member state of ILO is required to send to the annual International Labor Conference two government delegates, and one representative organization of employers and of workers. In 1946, ILO became a specialized agency of the newly formed United Nations. Now, it has 183 country members including Turkey. Turkey became a member of ILO in 1932 and ILO Ankara Office opened in 1976. The ILO aims to combat child labor, to increase women and youth employment, to strengthen social dialogue and eliminate informal economy in Turkey and all around the world.

Today, ILO provides international labor standards, make official meetings, events and campaigns. It develops projects for Decent Work. Also it gives training and provides publications, statistics and databases. International Labor Rights Forum (ILRF) ILRF is an advocacy organization dedicated to achieving just and humane treatment for workers worldwide. It is a nongovernmental organization which committed to ending the problems of child labor, forced labor and other abusive practices. ILRF promotes enforcement of labor rights through public education and mobilization, research, litigation, legislation and collaboration with labor, government and business groups. ILRF has many successful projects. One of them is the Cocoa Campaign. They long maintained a public awareness and advocacy campaign to end the child labor in the cocoa farms of West Africa. In 2009, ILRF helped to finally convince the chocolate giants, to make a commitment to Fair Trade Certified Cocoa Standards Labor Rights in Turkey The labor rights issue in Turkey directly connected with labor unions. There are four big unions in Turkey. These can be listed as: Confederation of Public Employees Trade Unions (KESK), Confederation of Revolutionary Trade Unions (DSK), Confederation of Turkish Real Trade Unions (HAK-) and Confederation of Turkish Trade Unions (TRK-) KESK and DSK attends the annual International Labor Conference every year. In addition, these four unions are the member of European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC). Also, from the governmental perspective, Turkeys Ministry of Labor and Social Security cooperates with international governmental organizations

ETUC Etuc exists to speak with a single voice, on behalf of the common interests of workers at European level and founded in 1973. Today, it represents 82 trade union organizations in 36 European countries plus 12 industry based federation.

TOURISM AND HOSPITALITY INDUSTRY

International Labor Organizations for Hospitality Industry: UNWTO: The World Tourism Organization (UNWTO/OMT) is a specialized agency of the United Nations and the leading international organization in the field of tourism. It serves as a global forum for tourism policy issues and a practical source of tourism know-how. UNWTO has projects and campaigns for tourism employees as well as for tourism development. The Organization encourages the implementation of the Global Code of Ethics for Tourism, with a view to ensuring that member countries, tourist destinations and businesses maximize the positive economic, social and cultural effects of tourism and fully reap its benefits, while minimizing its negative social and environmental impacts. Under global code of ethics for tourism there is also an article about labor rights which highlights the fundamental rights of salaried and self-employed workers. IUF: The International Union of Food, Agricultural, Hotel, Restaurant, Catering, Tobacco and Allied Workers' Associations (IUF) is an international federation of trade unions representing workers employed in

agriculture and plantations the preparation and manufacture of food and beverages hotels, restaurants and catering services all stages of tobacco processing

The IUF is currently composed of 336 trade unions in 120 countries representing a combined representational membership of over 12 million workers (including a financial membership of 2.7 million). It is based in Geneva, Switzerland. Tourism Concern: Tourism Concern fights exploitation in tourism. They are an independent, non-industry based, UK charity. They have a membership of almost 900 and work with partners in over 20 destination countries to ensure that tourism always benefits local people. They have studies for the improvement of tourism workers conditions. For example, they have a campaign namely putting tourism to rights. In that campaign their aim is calling on

governments and industry to more to respect and protect the human rights of destination communities and industry employees.

Labor Rights in Hospitality Industry Main challenges to labor rights are listed as flexibilization, globalization, and privatization (Stone, 2005) but still hospitality industry has its own problems. Major problems of workers in hospitality industry can be summarized as below: Instable employment and high turnover (Average job tenure is 1.5 years in USA, 18 months in Europe), Working hours are too long (More than the time allowed by law), unsocial, irregular, Low pay, absence of overtime payments, Low promotion opportunities, Low professional management of employees, Gender discrimination (High in women employment-50% but they are less paid than man20%), Child labor and sexual exploitation of children in the industry. Although there are many problems in the industry and workers can fight for their rights, unionization level is very low (globally at about 10%). Reasons for involvement in unions are explained by these points: Fragmented and heterogeneous nature of the industry, The domination of the industry by small and medium sized organizations, Reluctance of the employees, Subcontracting and internships which divide workers up into different segments, The paternalistic management style, Part time work, seasonality, labor turnover.

What can be inferred from these data is that there is a vicious cycle because what are the problems and violations of labor rights are the reasons for low unionization, too while the reverse should be expected.

Labor Rights in Tourism in Turkey Even though the number of female workers has increased considerably, the Turkish workforce is still male-dominated in promotional level in tourism industry but when we consider the general ratio between male and female workers, it is 50 percent.

From a letter of a worker in a hotel claims that the employees get low wages, there is no payment for any overtime work, the workers are supposed to work in unhealthy working conditions at least 10-11 hours in a day and there are certain obstructions for unionizing by the hotels ad governments. In Turkey, hotels mostly located in the cities such as Antalya, Bodrum and Marmaris have common issues in terms of seasonality. The workers at the end of the season could not get their payments and any compensation that are seen unfortunately as usual problems in hospitality industry. With the exception of the police and the armed forces, Turkish workers have the right to unionize or join existing labor unions. There are three major unions in Turkey. One of them is OLEYIS (Turkey Hotels, Restaurant and Entertainment Places Workers Union), an active union in criticizing and fighting for the rights of the labor. It provides unionization to the Hilton Hotels, Dedeman Hotels and some restaurants and teachers lodges. The second one is TOLEYIS (Turkeys Hotels, Restaurant and Entertainment Trades Workers Union) is more conservative and provides unionization to the airline companies and some well- known hotels such as Cragan Palace Kempinski and Swiss Hotel. The last one is HAVA- IS working with TURK-IS. It is the voice of civil aviation workers. It is a democratic and campaigning union which fights back for aviation workers in the workplace. According to ILO, for child labor the age limit is 15 with finishing compulsory education. Least 13-year-old children can work in the soft works such as working in the restaurants as waiters less than 14 hours in a week. A survey from ILO about the child labor force in Turkey on October, 1999 illustrates that 78.8 % of 6-17 year-old children continues their education. The rest has to work to help their family. In Turkey the 10-12 percent of the workers in service sector or 3-4 percent of total labor force is employed by tourism industry. The education level of these employees are getting higher year by year; the percentage was 10 in 1980s and it increased to 30 % in 1990s (Tatldil, 1988). The productivity level of the workers depends on the opportunities (health insurance, retirement insurance, annual leave and etc.) that their companies provide to them. A big majority of tourism employees leaves their jobs and wants to work in the other sectors because they are fired without any reason and there is not social rights given to the workers in tourism industry (Oral ve Demir, ubat 2001). In conclusion, there are a lot of labor exploitations around the world. Unfortunately, although some of them aware of labor rights, many of the workers do not really know what kind of rights they have. There is a long way to achieve ideal conditions at workplaces and spread labor rights practices.

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