Any visitor to Istanbul will be struck by how the skyline of the city is being littered with expensive and imposingly gaudy skyscrapers that are out of character with the city. These buildings and similar developments around the country are nevertheless seen as important indicators of Turkey’s impressive economic growth.

Needless to say, the Justice and Development Party (AKP) government claims credit for most of this growth, having come to power in 2002 immediately after one of Turkey’s worst economic crises. Turkey’s impressive economic recovery after the 2001 crisis, however, has its dark side.

To start with, it did not improve conditions for Turkish workers, who remain the most underprivileged in Europe. It has not resulted in better workplace safety for them either, as attested by the large number of deaths in recent workplace disasters.

The most striking of these was on May 13, when a mining disaster in the town of Soma killed 301 workers, and resulted in a serious headache for Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan just as he was preparing to run for president.