Blaming Others

The purpose of this study is to find out the sources of agency among a group of unskilled unionised workers. I argue that the lives of workers are situated in two domains, home and work, and family and union membership respectively become the sources of agency coupled with a discourse of blame. The discourse of blame, which is the daily form through which a sense of impotence among workers, is consciously used by unionised workers under the leadership of union representatives. This serves the construction of an imaginary community of workers based on the idea of a society in harmony and balance. The broader historical context in which my study can be situated in Turkey’s post-1980 period. In this period, export oriented industrialism went hand in hand with a kind of de-industrialisation and adoption of flexible production techniques both of which undermined the power of trade unions and the discourse of the welfare state. Thus my study can be understood as an attempt to demonstrate a moment of unionised workers’ responses to these processes.