Anti-Privatization Struggles and Working-Class Consciousness: The Case of Petkim

The aim of this study is to examine the effects of anti-privatization struggles of Petkim workers on the formation of working class consciousness. Working class consciousness is formed through class struggles. In Turkey, the privatizations of state owned enterprises became the most important agenda of labour movement with 1990s. In this study, due to these analysis, the workers of Petkim were sellected as a sample because they had struggled very long time against privatization of their factories under the leadership of Petrol-İş. Petrol-İş is one of the most important representatives of contentious trade unionism tradition in Turkey and it is also the most important union that organizes tough protests against privatization. In the research, a mixed methodologhy was chosen in which the qualitative and quantitative techniques were used together. Within this framework, a questionnaire was conducted with 315 workers and indepth interviews were carried out with 31 workers. In this study, it is observed that anti-privatization struggles play a vital role in the development of class consciousness among the workers.