Article 41 and the aforementioned articles of the Regulation on Overtime Work and working for excessive periods on the Labour Law define another practice called working for excessive periods in addition to overtime work in Turkey.
Accordingly, if the weekly working time is determined below forty-five hours in the contracts, the work exceeding the average weekly working time and up to forty-five hours is accepted as overtime work. In this case, as in the case of overtime work, it is important whether the weekly working time determined by the contracts is exceeded or not. If the principle of equalisation is applied, the total periods at the end of the equalisation period are taken into consideration. In this case, the weekly working time to be taken as basis will not be 45 hours, but the total hours determined in the contract. The part of the work exceeding 45 hours will be subject to overtime provisions.
At this point, Article 17 of the Law No. 6331 should also be taken into consideration. According to paragraph 7 of this article, which determines the general principles regarding the provision of occupational health and safety training to employees, if the training period to be provided within the scope of the article in question is above the weekly working time and between 40 hours and 45 hours, these periods should be considered as overtime work.
From this point of view, for example, if the weekly working time in a workplace is determined as 40 hours by a collective labour agreement, the employee’s work exceeding 40 hours but not exceeding 45 hours will be called working for excessive periods in Turkey. If the 2-month equalization principle is applied, the employee’s overtime work will be the work exceeding 320 hours but not exceeding 360 hours. In addition to these, if a work exceeding 45 hours per week is performed in the same workplace, the 5-hour period between 40 hours and 45 hours will be considered as overtime work and the part exceeding 45 hours will be considered as working for excessive periods in Turkey, and if the equalization principle is applied, the 40 hours between 320 and 360 hours will be considered as overtime work and the part exceeding 360 hours will be considered as working for excessive periods and will be subject to different procedures accordingly.
In the calculation of overtime working hours, periods less than half an hour shall be considered as half an hour and periods exceeding half an hour shall be considered as one hour.
In overtime work, the wage to be paid for each hour of overtime work shall be paid by increasing the amount of the normal working wage per hour by twenty-five per cent.
According to Article 41 of the Law and Article 6 of the Regulation, the person who works overtime may, if he/she wishes, use one hour and thirty minutes of free time for each hour of overtime work instead of the increased wage for this work. In this regard, the explanations made for overtime work should be taken as basis.
The only limitation in the law and the regulation on overtime work is related to part-time employees. Accordingly, according to Article 8 of the Regulation, part-time workers shall not be allowed to work overtime.
According to Article 10 of the Regulation, employers are required to issue a document showing the working hours of the workers who work overtime and keep it in the employee’s personnel file.
It is also envisaged to obtain the approval of the employee for overtime work. The explanations made for overtime work should also be taken into consideration in this regard.
