Fuat ERCAN, Derya GÜLTEKİN KARAKAŞ, NİHAN YILDIRIM

Control Regimes on Mobile Working Labor Process: The Case of Turkish Telecommunication Industry

The job content and work practices for office workers have significantly changed since the publication of “Labor and Monopoly Capital” (Braverman, 1974). With the advent of Mobile Internet ‘white-collar work’ has been virtualized and decentralized radically. The work place is extended and augmented to include all private and public spheres. The worker is isolated, further alienated and has lost the basis for solidarity of a traditional workplace. By revisiting Braverman’s analyses of labor process that calls for a social approach, this paper aims to contribute to discussions of the labor process and explores the new forms of employment in the mobile working era of telecommunication workers in the Turkish telecom industry. Examination of the survey findings with mobile telecom workers showed that mobile working accelerates surplus value production via rising managerial surveillance and intensification of the labor process. Mobile working includes increased control over labor and a hidden form of control, facilitating a real subsumption of labor. The changing organic composition of dead labor and living labor causes hybrid control regimes that include both conventional and technology-intensive labor controls. Continuous skill development needs and associated increase in workload act as parts of the control over labor process. The intervention of capitalist power in workers’ private time is transforming social relations between capital and labor. With the removal of temporal and spatial boundaries between work and private life, the internal division of the worker between herself and her work began to be blurred and duality almost disappeared.

Mobil Çalışma Emek Süreci Üzerindeki Kontrol Rejimleri: Türkiye Telekomünikasyon Sanayi Örneği

Ofis çalışanları için, iş tanımı ve işyeri pratikleri “Labor and Monopoly Capital” (Braverman, 1974) kitabının yayınlanmasından beri önemli değişim geçirdi. Mobil İnternetin etkisiyle ‘beyaz yakalı işler’ radikal boyutlarda sanallaştırılıp, mekȃnsızlaştırıldı. İşyerleri özel ve kamusal alanları içerecek şekilde genişletildi. Bu süreçte işçinin yalnızlaştırılması yabancılaştırmayı artırdı ve geleneksel işyerinin sağladığı dayanışma potansiyelini kaybetmesine yol açtı. Bu çalışmada Braverman’ın emek süreci analizleri ve onun sosyal bir bakış açısının gereğine olan vurgusu tekrar gündeme getirilerek, emek süreci tartışmalarına katkı sağlanması amaçlanmakta ve Türkiye telekomünikasyon sektöründeki telekomünikasyon işçilerinin mobil çalışma dönemindeki yeni istihdam biçimleri tartışılmaktadır. Telekomünikasyon sektörü çalışanları ile yapılan anket sonuçlarının incelenmesi, yönetsel gözetimin artışı ve emek sürecinin yoğunlaşması sayesinde mobil çalışmanın artı değer sağaltımını çoğalttığını göstermektedir. Mobil çalışma, emek üzerinde artan kontrol ile emeğin reel boyunduruğuna olanak veren gizli bir kontrol biçimini içermektedir. Sermayenin canlı ve ölü emek arasında değişen organik bileşimi, geleneksel ve teknoloji-yoğun emek denetimlerini aynı anda içeren melez kontrol rejimlerine yol açmaktadır. Sürekli beceri gelişimi gereği ve buna eşlik eden iş yükündeki artış emek süreci üzerinde artan kontrolün bileşeni olmaktadır. Kapitalist gücün işçinin özel zamanı üzerindeki müdahalesi emek ve sermaye arasındaki sosyal ilişkileri dönüştürmektedir. İş ve özel yaşam arasındaki zamansal ve mekânsal sınırların ortadan kalkmasıyla, işçinin kendisi ile işi arasındaki ayrışma muğlaklaşmakta ve neredeyse ortadan kalkmaktadır.

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