Özet:

Based on a field research, this study examines the rise and decline of the working class in an industrial town in Central Anatolia. It focuses in particular on the role of State Economic Enterprises (SEEs) in class formation and attempts to analyze the process as they appeared in the life histories of workers who had been employed by the government. The study has been conducted in Eregli where one of the biggest cotton factories of Turkey was located. The study has three main findings. First, in the initial years, the workers related their social status and respectability with the workplace, which meant a transition from traditional agricultural workmanship to modern industrial workmanship. Second, for the next generation, workers have great doubts about this organizational pattern, and looked for new points of departures for several reasons: arbitrary behaviors of the managers; corruption of the labor union; heavy workload and continuous labor control. Third, the privatization of the enterprise has uprooted the last generation. It has brought about disintegration that was not merely financial but also social, and even cultural

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