Turkish Labor Law
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Employee who terminated the employment contract for reason of being obliged to excessive over-time work (exceeding 270 hours a year) will be entitled to severance pay, according to Supreme Court ruling.
As a result of this, employee who is forced to work over 270 hours a year, and/or against his consent will have the right to terminate his employment contract with just cause.
Related Legislation: Labor Law and Regulation
Over-time work is arranged in article 41 of Labor Law 4857,
- Work exceeding forty-five hours a week is deemed overtime work.
- Overtime work may be performed for purposes such as the country’s interest, the nature of the operation or the need to increase output.
- In cases where the weekly working time has been set by contract at less than forty-five hours, work that exceeds the average weekly working time that last only up to forty-five hours weekly is deemed to be work at extra hours.
- Overtime cannot exceed 270 hours per year.
- Employee’s consent is required for overtime work and works at extra hours.
Also, the “Regulation on Overtime-work” stipulates that employer must obtain employee’s overtime consent document signed, citing in the document the conditions determined by Law or the operational necessities. These documents should be kept in employee’s personal file.
In practice employer schedules their annual overtime and works at extra hour works in January each year and prepares consent documents and get them signed by employees.
For employers who don’t obtain the employee’s approval for overtime and work at extra hours 295,00 TRY administrative fine will be applied for the year 2017.
The Case
- Employee terminated his employment contract for reason of excessive work (exceeding the legal yearly overtime limit of 270 hours) in the workplace and filed a lawsuit claiming his severance pay.
- Local Court didn’t accept the claim, and decided against it.
- However, Law department No. 9 of the Supreme Court overturned the decision, and its reversal dated 2 June 2015 ruled that;
ü Employee have been forced to work overtime over 270 hours a year
ü Employee’s consent for overtime has not obtained by the employer,
ü Employee has the right to terminate the employment contract for this reason and entitled to severance payment.
