Examining the job satisfaction of unionized employees in Turkey

Trade union formations first emerged after the Industrial Revolution. With the Industrial Revolution, there was a trend from labor-intensive production to capital-intensive production. This situation has caused employees to work in more difficult conditions and with poor wages. After these negative situations, workers came together and formed first small-scale and then over time large-scale worker unions. They came together and took initiatives to improve working conditions by using the power of the community. Work and working life are concepts that have existed since human history. Regardless of whether they are men or women, they have existed in working life at every moment of history. Working environment, nature of the job, salary, social and fringe benefits, etc. Factors such as affect satisfaction and motivation in working life. The absence or absence of one or more of these factors causes a decrease in job dissatisfaction. The aim of this thesis is to examine whether there is a change in the job satisfaction of employees in Turkey after becoming a union member. The population of the thesis consists of people who are working and also union members. In this research, which was conducted using a phenomenological design, the snowball/chain sampling method, one of the purposeful sampling methods, was used to determine the population. Semi-structured interview method was preferred as the data collection method. In this research, voice-recorded data were stored during the interviews with the consent of the participants. The data obtained at the end of the interviews were first transferred to a Microsoft Word file by transcription method and then analyzed with the MAXQDA ANALYTICS PRO 2020 DEMO program. As a result of the data analysis, 58.33% of the participants stated that their job satisfaction increased after becoming a member of the union. Keywords: Union, Union Membership, Job Satisfaction, Working Life, Satisfaction