Turkish Labor Law
Related Articles
It is indisputably accepted by the authorities that breast milk provides the ideal nutrition and is essential for the babies until they reach at least one year of age. Governments and law-makers all over the world introduced some legal provisions to meet that requirement and to ensure the healthiness and well-being of infants and mothers.
However, in the application of these provisions many problems occur for some reasons that are not easy to solve and that led to misuse of breastfeeding break (nursing leave). In this article we will discuss the legal basis, problems in practice and some suggestions on the matter.
LEGAL BASIS: RELATED LAW AND REGULATION ON TURKISH LEGISLATION
As per Article 74 of Labor Law No.4857 “Female employees shall be allowed a total of one and a half hour nursing leave in order to enable them to feed their children below the age of one. The employee shall decide herself at what times and in how many instalments she will use this leave. The length of the nursing leave shall be treated as part of the daily working time.”
And the Regulation on “Work Conditions of Pregnant or Nursing Women, Nursing Rooms and Child Care Units, Article 13” issued in the official journal No. 28737, dated 16th August 2013 stipulates that “a nursing room shall be provided by the employer who employs between 100- 150 women (regardless of their marital status or age), outside of but not far away more than 250 meters from the workplace. For companies with over 150 women workers it is compulsory for employer to establish also a day-care center. In calculation, all female employees working in same employer’s different workplaces within the municipal boundaries shall be taken into account as total.”
MAIN POINTS OF BREASTFEEDING LEAVE
- Mothers may request breaks during the working day amounting to 1 hour 30 minutes per day for breastfeeding,
- This leave stars after the mother comes back to work after her statutory maternity leave period (or/and 6 months optional unpaid leave, if any) is ended and applies until the baby is one year old,
- Mothers schedule the periods for breastfeeding, i.e. at what times and in how many parts she will use this break,
- Nursing leave periods shall be treated as having been worked; and also be reckoned as part of the one-year requirement to qualify for annual leave with pay, by virtue of Labor Law, Article 55 and 65,
- Request for breastfeeding leave and the schedule determined by mother should be submitted to employer in writing, and a “written approval” should be received from employer as an evidencing document.
- Employer cannot refuse the right of breastfeeding leave and it cannot be weaved by mother.
- Working is prohibited for nursing women at night within the 6 months following delivery, and they cannot be forced to work exceeding 7,5 hours a day.
- In the workplaces employing between 100-150 women (regardless of their marital status or age), there must be a nursing room in which mothers may feed their babies, and this room must have the necessary privacy, i.e. separate from the workplace but not far away more than 250 meters, otherwise employer is obliged to provide the transport
