Privatisation in Turkey: Employees' views on privatisation in the Turkish cement industry, and some comparisons with Britain

Abstract

In the 1980s privatisation was resorted to by governments world-wide. Very little comparative research has been conducted into what this has meant for employees in companies that were privatised in either developed or developing countries. This paper examines the views of employees in privatised cement companies in a developing country, Turkey, and systematically compares their views to those of employees whose opinions were examined in a previous study in Britain. The paper amply confirms that the occupationally stratified response to privatisation already found in Britain also applies in Turkey. However, it also suggests that there is generally less hostility to privatisation among employees in Turkey than in Britain and that this difference is to be attributed to specific historic and institutional differences between the two countries and in particular to the origin, representation and functioning of their public sectors.