ABSTRACT
In industrial relations, the subject of women and trade unions is usually limited to union membership, participation and representation. Hence, there is a paucity of research and literature on the factors influencing women’s participation in industrial activism and how women workers experience and give meaning to ‘being a woman labor activist’. However, empirical studies aiming at analyzing how and why women become workplace activists are significant in understanding the complicated and multidimensional relationship between women and trade unions. Shop floor conditions are among the major causes of resistance and struggle; thus, the starting point of these empirical studies should be the factory. Undeniably the existence of a trade union at the shop floor level as a collective power instrument in improving these conditions plays a vital role in women’s decisions over becoming actors in the resistance process. The present study has two purposes. For one thing it aims to explain how shop floor dynamics have been experienced by women who participated in a trade union resistance. The second purpose is to explore multiple meanings of labor activism for these women actors. To do these explorations through qualitative research, 14 semistructured interviews were conducted with women labor activists who took part in Gebze Bericap struggle. The data collected were analyzed in terms of women’s subjective experiences and how they attribute meaning to ‘being a labor activist’
Keywords : Industrial relations, women, resistance, labor activism, workplace, trade unions