TURKISH PRESS UNION'S ATTEMPTS FOR THE INSTITUTIONALISATION OF JOURNALISTS' LABOUR RELATIONS BETWEEN 1939-1946 AND ITS EFFECTS ON THE IMPLICATIONS TODAY

Turkish Press Union (TPU) was founded at 1939, to institutionalize the journalism sector in Turkey. The most fundamental professional rights for the journalists, such as obligation for a written agreement with the journalists in 3 months maximum, paid vacation, ordering compensation for the journalist who is fired were listed at The Press Union Law (PUL). However, as these rules did not have any sanction, they were realized only as advice by the owners of the newspapers and magazines. The aim of this article is, first of all, to reveal the attemps which were done by TPU to improve the working conditions of journalists between 1939 and 1946 and to search for an answer to the question of why these attemps were unsuccesful. In this article it is also investigated which professional and social rights of the journalists have been carried into Press Labor Law from Press Union Law. In this article, mainly first hand documents which are related with TPU were used. It can be said that the most significant finding of this study is to find out that the majority of the journalists did not benefit from the most fundamental rights which were in PUL such as written agreement, paid vacation or compensation for the journalist who is fired, and they were employed without any certain rules or principles as the bosses wanted, like today.