Interview with women workers’ online newspaper: We will document women’s labor with women's stories.

“Kadın İşçi (Woman Worker) is an online newspaper published by women workers with the slogan “For all kinds of our labor situations everywhere.” The women workers have prepared an application booklet about many issues such as methods of combating violence and sexual harassment, “We will organize together to make our invisible labor visible, to achieve our rights, to reach women workers and to allow women workers to reach us.”

EKİN ARDA

News Center- An online newspaper “Kadın İşçi (Woman Worker)” was launched November 17, 2020, by a group of feminist women workers in order to make women's labor and experience visible in working life. The women aim to document their labor and make it visible everywhere from past to present. The women also aim to form a reporters’ network consists of women workers in every region of Turkey. We spoke to Necla Akgökçe and Serap Güre to learn more about the women workers’ online newspaper.

·         First of all, could you tell us about your website? How was it founded?

We began to hold meetings in 2019 as a group of feminist women workers. Many labor unions couldn’t produce much politics about women’s labor and the labor unions, which could produce politics didn’t see the unpaid labor. However, when it comes to women workers, the unpaid labor of women should be seen. The labor of female domestic workers was invisible and their labor should have been visible in some way. Women, who carried out works for unions, were told, “Unions are co-organizations, women and men should work together” while their branch presidents, representatives, delegates, and members were men. We couldn’t make a process about women workers’ rights but we were always pushed. So-called co-unions were run by men. We talked about women workers’ organizations to make women workers more visible and we decided to launch an online newspaper reporting women workers’ stories. And we launched our website on November 17, 2020.  

·         Your slogan is “For all kinds of our labor situations everywhere”. What is the meaning and story of the slogan?

We work free at home, in farms, in the shops of our father or husband, textile mills, or family business. While we work in factories, offices, universities, municipalities, we also have to work at home. Yes, we work everywhere; in the east, west, our country and other countries. We have many labor situations. This slogan contains all invisible and visible women’s labor everywhere. The slogan should be short and comprehensive. It should also emphasize the value of women's labor. The story of our slogan is actually our story…

·         We would like to mention a few technical issues as well. For instance, your news network… Do you have a reporter network? How did you form your editorial policy?

We aim to form a reporters’ network in every region. To form it, we aimed to organize training courses on journalism, women's labor journalism, and feminist journalism. We chose several cities and industrial zones to organize the training courses but we couldn’t organize due to the pandemic. We have held meetings on Zoom to determine our editorial policy.

·         Can the website be the voice of women workers’ labor?

We are just at the bottom of the ladder. We have limited opportunities. Can we be the voice of women workers? I don’t know… If I said yes, it would be a big claim. Do we aim to be the voice of women workers? Of course, but first, they should choose you to be their voice. We want to make the invisible women’s labor visible. We expect women workers to write their stories and send them to us.