New forms of wage labour and struggle in the informal sector: the case of waste pickers in Turkey

In the absence of formal employment opportunities and with increasing urban and rural poverty, the informal recycling sector has become a means of survival for the past two decades in Turkey. In the capital city, Ankara, the large majority of waste pickers constitute former dispossessed Kurdish farmers who migrated to the city with their families from the southeastern regions as a result of forced migration, and seasonal Kurdish workers who alternate between rural and urban employment. The introduction of new waste management regulations in 2004 made the recycling market a significant area of struggle between local authorities, recycling companies and waste pickers. Local authorities have used these regulations to force waste pickers to sell their waste to certain recycling companies at a price lower than the market price. Waste pickers have reclaimed their right to work in the streets against the violence executed by the municipal police. This paper investigates the ways in which waste pickers should be considered wage labourers and what kind of a moral discourse they have used in making their demands vis-à-vis local governments during the process of intense conflict and negotiation.