Turkish Labor Law
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In case of bad weather and under some other circumstances that made working impossible, employer has the right to ask its employers to make up unworked hours at a later date. Also, the days unworked before and after holidays –especially the half-days before the Turkish religious holidays- may be considered in the same scope. However, this right of employer has some limitations; and monetary fines can be applicable in the cases of violating the provisions set forth in Law and Regulation.
Compensatory work is arranged in Article 64 of Labor Law No. 4857, and in Article 7 of Working Time Regulations;
“In cases where time worked has been considerably lower than the normal working time or where operations are stopped entirely for reasons of suspending work due to force majeure or on the days before or after the national and public holidays or where the employee is granted time off upon his request, the employer may call upon compensatory work within two months in order to compensate for the time lost due to unworked periods.”
Employer’s Obligation
Employer is under the obligation of informing the employees clearly for which reasons specified in Labor Law, and on what dates the compensatory work will be done.
Compensatory work must be done within sixty days following the date reason that prevented work is disappeared and workplace returned to its normal operation. After this period employees cannot be forced to make up their unworked hours.
Can employer ask its employees to work at weekends or holidays to make up unworked days?
Compensatory work cannot be carried out on holidays or weekends.
How many hours a day can be made up?
Compensatory work cannot exceed three hours daily, and must not exceed the maximum daily working time in any case, i.e. daily 11 hours.
These work hours are not considered overtime work or work at extra hours
In case employees are working 5 days a week and taking the Saturday and Sunday off, no employee can be forced to compensatory work neither on Sunday nor Saturday.
Administrative fines
Acting in contravention of provisions related to compensatory work, for each employee: 295,00 TRY.
Not complying with the provisions of “Regulation on Working Hours.”: 1.619,00 TRY.
