Coding the Labor of the Future Together: The BilişimSen Manifesto of Collective Mind and Participatory Unionism
A Proposal for the Charter and Structure of the Founding Period
Esteemed Information Workers, Our Fellow Travelers,
Our union BilişimSen is at one of the most exciting and strategic turning points of its founding process. As we move toward our First Ordinary General Assembly, it must be our common goal for the institutional structure we will build to have an inclusive, flexible, and fully democratic character. At the beginning of institutionalization processes, one may at times encounter natural but dangerous risks such as the formation of vertical hierarchies, the narrowing of decision-making mechanisms into the hands of certain cliques, or the coming to the fore of "groupist" (clique) reflexes.
The rational, merit-focused, and horizontal relationships inherent in the nature of the information sector must also be the fundamental guide that determines our union's institutional architecture. Our strongest response to undemocratic, top-down, or coercive tendencies is not personal polemics, but the building of a sound institutional/charter-based architecture fully compliant with Law No. 6356 on Unions and Collective Bargaining Agreements and with universal union norms.
This vision document has been prepared as a proposal with the aim of opening to discussion a model in which all tendencies and areas of expertise can express themselves at the highest level, and in which decision processes are kept away from central concentrations, and of determining our "non-negotiable" standards in the charter-making process.
Participatory and "Open Source"-Oriented Union Transformation
Traditional union models are vertical and centralist structures shaped according to the needs of the industrial age. The distributed, flexible, and remote working practices brought by the digital age, meanwhile, necessitate a new methodology in union organizing as well. Within BilişimSen, a model must be operated that prevents processes from concentrating in certain hands and that keeps the will of the base perpetual.
| Institutional Parameter | Traditional Structures (To Be Avoided) | BilişimSen Innovative Structure (Targeted) |
|---|---|---|
| Organizing Model | Vertical hierarchy, rigid branch bureaucracy, a focus on central management. | Horizontal and distributed network structure, project-based Agile Working Groups (Squads). |
| Communication Infrastructure | Top-down official notifications and processes behind closed doors. | Two-way, transparent, real-time digital platforms and an open institutional archive. |
| Decision Mechanisms | Agreements based on limited representation and the imposition of bloc lists. | Open-source charter development, digital consultations, and the open list (çarşaf liste). |
The Principle of Open Source Unionism: In order to make transparency permanent in our union's institutional structure, financial budget plans, board decisions, and activity reports must be shared—in full compliance with the Personal Data Protection Law (KVKK)—in encrypted and logged form on digital platforms open to the inspection of all members. The visibility of processes will, on its own, render futile the closed-circuit bargaining of anti-democratic cliques.
Guaranteeing Diversity in the General Assembly Process: The "Open List" Is Our Non-Negotiable!
In the First General Assembly process, the most critical moment that determines a union's fate is the determination of the election method. The imposition by provisional founding administrations or by certain organized groups of their own "Bloc List" (package list) drafts, by railroading the general assembly through, means the strangling of intra-union democracy before it is even born. A bloc list means "the group that takes 51 percent of the votes seizing 100 percent of the administration." Against this monopolistic approach, the Open List method (Individual and Open Ballot) must be our union's non-negotiable red line.
Why Is the Open List the Only Solution Against Impositions?
- The Liberation of Merit: On the open list, the names of all candidates (independent of their groups, or alphabetically) must appear on a single ballot. The delegate must not be forced to approve a ready-made "menu" presented to them; they must be able to freely choose meritorious, competent names that have a real basis at the grassroots from across different lists.
- Breaking the Hegemony of the Clique: When the open list is applied, the visionless names that groups hide at the bottom of their lists—those whom the base does not approve but who are sought to be carried into the administration out of loyalty—can easily be "crossed out" by the voter. This renders futile the bloc impositions of the cliques.
- The Representation of Independent Will: The only way for independent information workers—who have no group backing behind them but who will add value to the union with their vision and technical competence—to be elected to administrative organs is the open list.
The open list is the most legitimate "code of conduct" that breaks intra-union monopolization. This system, combined with the principle of Proportional Representation (holding seats in proportion to the votes received), must absolutely be adopted at the general assembly as an unchangeable article of our union charter. One of the first motions to be submitted to the assembly presidency at the first general assembly must absolutely be in the direction of "Holding elections by the open list method."
Furthermore, prior to the official election processes, "Digital Pre-Voting" mechanisms must be operated with the aim of statistically measuring the tendencies of the grassroots will. Charter drafts and political decisions must first be submitted to the members' evaluation on digital platforms.
A Vision of Institutional Maturity and Sustainability
The founding stage of a union is the most critical period in which the foundations of the institutional culture and democratic conventions are laid. BilişimSen, which has not yet held its First Ordinary General Assembly, has the opportunity to build a model suited to the dynamic, rational, and merit-focused structure of the information sector.
In early-stage organizations, the concentration of decision-making mechanisms in certain areas, or the evolution of institutional processes into vertical hierarchies that limit plurality of voices, may emerge as a natural structural risk. The most rational way to prevent such tendencies from becoming an institutional reflex is not to enter into personal or factional disputes, but to design—within the framework of Law No. 6356 and universal union norms—an objective charter architecture that automatically ensures full transparency and broad-based participation.
A Proposal for the Innovative and Objective Design of the Legally Mandatory Organs
It is proposed that the boards whose establishment is mandatory under Law No. 6356 be cleansed of vertical bureaucratic cumbersomeness and turned into transparent institutional guarantee mechanisms for all members:
Audit Board: Continuous Financial and Procedural Transparency
It is proposed that the audit board be taken out of being a structure that examines documents only at period-ends and be designed as the union's continuous "Financial Guarantee Mechanism."
- Institutional Guarantee: Through an article to be added to the charter, the regular monthly sharing of all of the union's expenditure items, budget vouchers, and board decisions (with personal data masked) in logged form in a digital archive accessible to members must be made mandatory.
Disciplinary Board: The Basis of the "Code of Conduct" (Community Principles)
In order to prevent disciplinary processes from being based on abstract or interpretation-open justifications, it is proposed that the board operate with objective criteria.
- Institutional Guarantee: Clarifying in the charter the principles of investigation according to the "Code of Conduct" model applied in global open-source projects, and conducting the defense and evaluation processes with complete openness, will protect institutional peace.
Functional Committees (Squads) That Organize the Labor of the Future
Within BilişimSen, it is proposed to establish, instead of the cumbersome and title-focused bureaucratic structures of traditional unions, continuous Functional Committees that will produce rational solutions directly to sectoral problems:
- Union Open Source and Distributed Infrastructure Committee (DevOps): Ensures that union communication is conducted on institutional and secure platforms (Matrix/Element, Discourse), and maximizes data security by encrypting the member database with "Blind Authentication."
- Committee to Combat the Crunch Culture: Tracks unpaid overtime and stand-by (on-call) durations in the sector; develops templates of timestamped log analysis tools that turn members' working hours into provable data.
- Workplace Surveillance (Bossware) and Digital Self-Defense Committee: Subjects to legal examination the limits of the surveillance software that companies install on employees' computers, and prepares the legal ground for the "Right to Disconnect" to be included in contracts.
- Artificial Intelligence, Intellectual Property, and Non-Compete Committee: Analyzes the excessive non-compete clauses in contracts, protects the intellectual property rights of projects developed outside working hours, and examines the impact of artificial intelligence on labor processes.
- Global Labor (Contractor) and Cross-Border Rights Committee: Provides guidance to information workers who work for firms abroad under remote service contracts in their severance, leave, and taxation processes; carries out integration with international technology unions.
- Inclusivity, Neurodiversity, and Psychological Safety Committee: Develops anonymous reporting and psychological support mechanisms against the hierarchical pressures that can be built through ageism, gender discrimination, and technical seniority in the sector.
Expanded Structure: Groups Ensuring the Will of the Base and Global Integration
So that intra-union democracy is not limited to general assemblies and participation is made perpetual, it is proposed that the following institutional structures be included in the charter:
Virtual Workplace Representations and Regional Nodes (Virtual Nodes)
It is proposed to establish "Digital Workplace Representations" that transcend physical boundaries for companies or technoparks where remote and distributed information workers are concentrated. These representatives, by ensuring coordination on the union's encrypted servers under legal guarantees, will serve as an early warning mechanism against rights violations in the workplace.
Continuous Base Parliament (Base Parliament)
In order to ensure that the board does not become detached from the base in its decisions, a digital advisory assembly must be established that convenes regularly with the participation of general assembly delegates and active committee representatives. Large-budget expenditures or strategic policy changes must be submitted to the consultation of this assembly.
Management of the Financial Solidarity, Strike, and Guarantee Fund
It is proposed that a fixed proportion of member dues set by the charter (15–20%) be collected in a "Guarantee Fund" independent of the board's arbitrary disposition. This fund will provide temporary financial support to information workers who suffer loss of income due to union rights-seeking struggles or legal processes.
International Relations and Global Labor Integration Desk
In keeping with the cross-border character of information labor, a permanent working desk must be designed that ensures institutional integration with global umbrella structures such as the UNI Global Union or the Tech Workers Coalition, and that mobilizes international solidarity networks against the exploitative policies of global technology giants.
Modern Communication Strategy and Digital Self-Defense Architecture
In order to prevent communication channels from being monopolized by certain individuals and to protect members' job security, a layered and protected architecture must be put into practice:
- Public Layer (Public): Social awareness work must be conducted through the website and institutional social media accounts.
- Semi-Open Layer (Community): Broad discussion platforms must be established that are accessed through sectoral authentication and on which members may, if they wish, use pseudonyms (pseudonym).
- Cryptographic Closed Layer (Core/Squads): End-to-end encrypted rooms must be created in which working groups can securely conduct their operational processes.
Security and Psychological Guarantee: In order to protect members' identity security, a "Blind Authentication" bridge must be integrated that isolates legal membership information from user profiles on digital platforms. No administrator or group must have arbitrary access to lists according to members' political/union tendencies.
Procedural Maturity and the Tradition of a Written Culture
In order to prevent institutional processes from being managed through anti-democratic fait accomplis, the following methods must be adopted as a union tradition:
- A Process-Oriented Approach: Personal polemics must be rejected; every kind of criticism must be presented rationally and in writing within the framework of charter articles and audit mechanisms.
- Written Culture and the "Pull Request" Methodology: Charter revision work or decision drafts must be conducted over a digital repository; each proposed change must, just like a Pull Request (PR), be submitted to the base's evaluation with its rationale clearly stated. Verbal agreements behind closed doors must be deemed invalid in our union.
- An Anchor of Legal Legitimacy: In all our steps, Article 51 of the Constitution, Law No. 6356, and ILO conventions must be taken as a guide; democratic pressure mechanisms must be kept alive so that the founders' board convenes its first general assembly within the legal period, fairly and transparently.
Conclusion and a Call to the Will of the Base: A Democratic Culture Contract for Our Shared Future
BilişimSen is a historic step on the path toward cognitive labor and digital production receiving the value they deserve in Turkey, and toward working conditions being carried onto a rational and humane footing. In this most sensitive phase of our founding process, protecting our union's future institutional health and securing the multi-voiced structure of decision-making mechanisms is the shared responsibility of us all.
The most lasting antidote to the structural risks that can be seen from time to time in early-stage organizations—such as the concentration of authority, institutional insularity, or the narrowing of channels of participation—is not temporary resentments or personal disputes, but taking institutional precautions in time and building a democratic union culture by means of the charter. Our greatest strength against the sectoral and economic dynamics before us is our collective intelligence, our procedural maturity, and our will to operate institutional processes with complete transparency.
As we move with sure steps toward our First Ordinary General Assembly, in order to turn intra-union democracy, diversity, and participation into institutional contracts, we invite all our members and delegate candidates to take together the following three constructive steps:
- An Inclusive and Participatory Charter Mobilization: It is essential that the charter draft, which has the character of our union's constitution, be matured not through narrow agreements behind closed doors, but on digital and transparent platforms to which all members and areas of expertise can contribute. We call on all stakeholders to address the charter articles with the vision of a developer and to code the institutional guarantees with collective mind.
- Securing the Justice of Representation in Elections (The Open List Consensus): That no intellectual tendency, expertise group, or founding will be excluded from the administrative mechanisms at the general assembly is the foundation of our institutional peace. To this end, the inscribing into the charter of the Open List and Proportional Representation method—which maximizes the ground of union justice and legitimacy—instead of narrow "winner-takes-all" models, is the most constructive protective measure that will prevent possible future institutional deadlocks. We must turn this procedure, as a mark of BilişimSen's democratic maturity, into a shared red line.
- A Project- and Merit-Focused Delegation Culture, Not Titles: General assembly delegateship and organ candidacies must be positioned not as an arena of administrative power or seat-sharing, but as a commitment to take on responsibility in the functional committees (Squads) that will produce concrete solutions to sectoral problems. It must become an institutional convention for all candidates to present their union visions, projects, and sectoral merits to the base's appraisal with written documents.
A Call to Democratic Maturity: The rational, open-source structure of the digital world—one that does not accept error—must also be the fundamental guide of our union design. A BilişimSen that spreads decision-making authority to the broadest base, that makes processes auditable, and that values the will of every member equally will be the safest harbor for us all.
To build the union culture of the future together, with collective mind, courtesy, and on a legal footing, we invite all information workers to make active and constructive contributions to institutional processes.
It is time to take responsibility for a participatory and transparent future!
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