Abstract:

With the increase of industrialization in the 19th Century, number of production units which employed a large number of workers also began to increase in the Ottoman labour life. One of the natural results of this increase is that strikes stemming from disagreements between employers and employees began to be seen more frequently from the 1870’s on. Especially the Second Constitutional Monarchy, declared in 1908, formed a basis for settlement of labour movements and labour organizations. The Rumelia region which included important production centers like Salonika, Drama, Kavala, Xanthi and Manastir, was one of the most stunning region in the Ottoman territories in terms of frequency of labour movements and activeness of labour organizations. Throughout 1910, that dynamism paved the way for solidarity among workers both in the Rumelia region and other regions of the empire. But the Balkan Wars, which began in 1912, and the loss of Rumelia region interrupted the progress of the labour movements irrevocably and the labour organizations in the Ottoman State got leaderless. This study, which is based on primary sources such as archive records and the periodicals, aims to show the progress period of the labour movements in the Ottoman Empire and effects of the Balkan Wars to that progress period on the basis of the Rumelia region

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