Labor Law: Turkey to Amend Working Time Which Cannot be Divided into Weekly Working Days

The Ministry of Labor and Social Security of Turkey has recently issued the Amending Regulation on the Regulation Pertaining to Working Time Which Cannot be Divided into Weekly Working Days (“Regulation”), to be effective as of July 27, 2021. The Regulation Pertaining to Working Time Which Cannot be Divided into Weekly Working Days regulates the rules and procedures to be applied to the working period and working time in works where it is not possible to divide the working period into working days of a week, as in the case of transportation works carried out on highways, railways and vehicles in motion on sea, lake and rivers and are not subject to the Maritime Labor Law numbered 854. With this respect, it is stipulated that the working period for such works will be determined by the employer depending on the nature of the job, not exceeding six months at the most. Additionally, working time in a working period may not exceed the amount calculated by multiplying the number of the weeks with weekly working time. In case the working time cannot be divided into weeks, working time should be calculated by taking into account workdays of 7,5 hours. For works that are under the scope of the Regulation Pertaining to Working Time Which Cannot be Divided into Weekly Working Days, weekly working time may be determined more or less than forty-five hours, however, the weekly average working time during the working period may not exceed forty-five hours.

With the Regulation, implementation of daily working hours has been amended concerning transportation works. While the Regulation does not amend the previous provisions which stipulates that daily working time cannot exceed 11 hours, night working time cannot exceed 7.5 hours a day and daily working time for vehicle drivers with professional and heavy vehicle driver license cannot exceed 9 hours; it has been stipulated that daily working time of the vehicle drivers with professional and heavy vehicle driver licenses may be increased to ten hours twice in any week.

Simge Kılıç, Esra Temur