Labour union Turk-Is has opened its expansive new headquarters complex, abandoning its modest 65-year-old home in the Kizilay quarter in central Ankara, Turkish daily Cumhuriyet has reported.

The families of the workers were among those who attended the opening of the new building. Following a moment of silence and the singing of the national anthem, opening speeches took place. Prayers were offered and a sacrifice was performed.

‘The Tall Man’

During the inauguration ceremony, Ergun Atalay, who has led Turkey’s largest trade union confederation since 2013, shared insights on the achievement he secured in bagging the new HQ.

When Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, visited the previous headquarters of Turk-Is in September 2020, he made a characteristic observation about the state of the building. Finding the low ceilings uncomfortable, he remarked that his head was nearly touching the ceiling. Atalay seized the moment.

“I told him: ‘Mr President, grant us a parcel of land and we will build a new headquarters,’” Atalay recalled.

Erdogan promptly instructed Murat Kurum, his minister of environment and urbanisation, to allocate a generous 21-dunam (5.2-acre) plot in Ankara’s upscale Mustafa Kemal district. Six years later, as Turk-Is celebrated its 74th anniversary, the confederation moved to its new base.

“Uzun Adam”, or “The Tall Man”, is among the marketing slogans used in Erdogan’s PR campaigns. He is around 1.85 metres tall.

“Like the state itself”

The new HQ is at the heart of Ankara’s emerging power corridor. It is surrounded by the state’s most formidable security and diplomatic installations.

“Directly diagonal to us, 1.5 kilometres ahead, is the 'Ay Yildiz' complex, Turkey’s Pentagon, where the entire military apparatus will be resident in six months,” Atalay told attendees at the opening.

“To one side of us, the new foreign ministry is under construction, and on our left, the National Intelligence Organisation [MIT]. Behind us is a university. Like the state itself, Turk-Is is stood right in the middle,” he added.

Paradoxically, to workers, Turk-Is is their sole representative on the committee that sets Turkey’s minimum wage each year. Atalay always comes under heavy criticism. He regularly leaves the committee or misses press conferences to protest against lower-than-demanded figures.

The construction process was not without legal friction. Three professional institutions filed lawsuits challenging the zoning, arguing the site was inappropriate for a major labour headquarters. The legal battle stretched on for two years before the Council of State (Danistay) on July 31 ruled in favour of Turk-Is.

“If Ataturk were alive today”

Dismissing the legal challenge, Atalay employed national memory: “I told them that if Mustafa Kemal Ataturk [the founder of the Republic of Turkey and a main symbol in the contemporary laicist-Islamist division in the country] were alive today, he would have given this land to Turk-Is and the workers.”

As of July, only around 2.4mn of the 17.6mn registered workers in Turkey were members of a labour union, suggesting a unionisation rate of 14%. Turk-Is has approximately 1.2mn members, making it the largest labour confederation in the country.

The second and third largest confederations are Hak-Is, which boasts an Islamist ideology, and DISK, which offers a leftist ideology. All three confederations work in harmony and Turk-Is represents them on the minimum wage committee.

Ataturk’s republic, it can be recalled, was also not too receptive to labour rights while New Turkey has turned the screw to a painful extent.