In Şükran Soner's line of journalism, workers' rights, union organization and worker health and safety are the basic foundations of her nearly 60 years of professional testimony, beyond her usual field of expertise.
Soner followed his working life from the field since the early days of his journalism. Especially starting from the late 1960s, he reported on unionization struggles, strikes, collective bargaining agreements and employer pressures in factories. According to his own words, in the weekly worker page he prepared in Cumhuriyet, he was describing the situation of workers who were dismissed due to black lists created by employers after the events of 15-16 June (1970).
WITNESSING HISTORY
For this reason, Soner's writings can be considered not only as a product of journalism, but also as first-hand testimonies of Turkey's labor history from the 1960s to the present. He directly followed the founding and development period of DİSK, the movements within Türk-İş, Maden-İş, Kemal Türkler, the 15-16 June resistance and the subsequent union struggles. His testimony, which describes June 15-16 as a broad workers' rights and union freedom movement in which not only DİSK but also many workers who were members of Türk-İş participated, is especially important.
In addition, Soner served as a manager in the Turkish Journalists Union (TGS) for many years and served as chairman for a period. Therefore, his contribution to workers' rights is not limited to observer journalism; He was also involved in union organisation.
'Will this order continue like this?'
From a public health perspective, Soner's journalism has a particularly remarkable aspect: He is among the first intellectuals to address occupational accidents not as isolated events, but as a structural problem related to working conditions and social policy.
"Will this order continue like this?", dated 2014, which he wrote after the Soma disaster. His article titled is one of the clear examples of this. Here, Soner draws attention to the problem that occupational diseases appear to be extraordinarily low in official records, despite the high number of work accidents in Turkey. In other words, it focuses not on the absence of occupational diseases, but on the fact that they are not adequately recognized, detected and recorded.
In the same article, he describes an important worker health incident he observed in the 1970s: Hospital reports revealed that workers in a lead-used factory were suffering from chronic lead poisoning, and the then Minister of Labor, Bahir Ersoy, had the factory closed until the necessary health measures were taken. Soner emphasizes very well how workers are stuck between protecting their health and the fear of losing their jobs. This example documents from a very early date the problem that we continue to discuss today as the “health-job security conflict”.
HE PUT THE LABOR STRUGGLE ON THE AGENDA
Poor working conditions in shipyards and "occupational crimes", subcontracting, unregistered work and deunionization are also issues that Soner brings to the agenda again and again. Thus, worker health is not separated from wages and union rights; evaluated it in terms of organization, job security, working conditions and social state integrity.
He followed unionisation, strike and collective bargaining struggles for many years, was a direct journalistic witness of the events and passed them on to the next generations, documented blacklists, layoffs and de-unionization, constantly kept occupational accidents and occupational diseases on the agenda, pointed out that insufficient records in Turkey did not reflect the real disease burden, criticized the neglect of protective and preventive measures on the grounds of cost, associated fatal work accidents with the structural consequences of the working order, was involved in the organized labor movement as the director and chairman of TGS, and cooperated with workers and unionists. It is an academic responsibility to consider his creation of an oral history archive through his interviews as the subject of a scientific thesis.
It would be incomplete to evaluate Şükran Soner only under the title of "journalist" among those who contribute to the field of occupational health in Turkey. His main contribution is to constantly demonstrate to the public the connection between the medical dimension of workers' health and union rights, social security, job security, wage policy and working regime. In this respect, it will continue to lead the way as one of the important representatives of the "labor journalism-worker health" relationship in Turkey.
We will remember him with love and respect...
