ABSTRACT

This paper aims to show the significance of law for studying the history of labor and labor process. Labor law is probably the most developed sub-field of labor studies in Turkey. However, the novelty of the discussion presented in this study lies in its recognition of law as a constitutive system of everyday practices. The paper argues that the labor law is crucial for it is used as to regulate and also legitimate the indigenous production and enforcement of the norms in the everyday functioning of the workplace. The paper focuses on the period from the immediate aftermath of the World War II to the end of 1950s. During the period, the working population experienced a massive migration and new urban societies were being manufactured. The new working class in the cities was composed overwhelmingly of people who had moved to a new environment from long distances. Under such conditions, the question of the subordination of labor required extra-economic instruments to facilitate and secure productive discipline at the shop-floor level. The analysis of factory regulations reveals that the everyday workings of the law were crucial in the constitution of labor control in the production process in a period when labor legislation was in the process of being made. Managements’ concern with greater punctuality and work discipline reflected in the factory regulations contributed to the workers’ sense of encroachment and fostered growing protests of the worker unions. The analysis presented here also reveals that the legal authority was disinclined to intervene in the “private law” established by employers in order to exert discipline in this historical conjuncture when the legal infrastructure of state controlled labor relations was in the process of construction