Covid-19: Companies Deduct Quarantine Period From Employees’ Annual Leave

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Shortly after Minister of Health Fahrettin Koca recommended "the ones who have come to Turkey from abroad to isolate themselves for a period of 14 days", some social media users have complained that their employers have forced them to take their annual leave.

While the Plaza Protest Platform (Plaza Eylem Platformu - PEP) has confirmed the allegations, Prof. Turgut Tarhanlı from the Faculty of Law at İstanbul Bilgi University has stressed that forcing employees to take their annual leave to lower the costs does not comply with human rights.

Akçay: They are made to work from home or take annual leave

Eylem Akçay from the PEP has spoken to bianet about the issue. As Covid-19, the new strain of coronavirus, has quickly spread to several countries in the world, companies have their employees either work from home or force them to take annual leave, Akçay has said.

Underlining that employers are responsible for their employees' health among other things, Akçay has emphasized that companies should provide their workers with suitable conditions in that regard.

Akçay does not want the quarantine period to be deducted from the annual leave. "Companies protect their own interests first. But, in fact, the health of workers should be prioritized", Akçay has added.

Tarhanlı: It does not comply with human rights

We have asked this issue to Prof. Turgut Tarhanlı from İstanbul Bilgi University. "Using the forced leave to lower the companies' costs does not comply with human rights", Tarhanlı has told bianet and underlined the companies' responsibility to respect human rights in following words:

"It is a legal standard ensured by the United Nations (UN) Guide for Integrating Human Rights into Business Management. When the annual leave of employees is considered, it needs to be evaluated whether there is a requirement apart from the worker's own will and foresight.

"The Ministry said that a 14-day quarantine should be imposed, but - in doing this - it did not mention any regulatory action regarding the legal state of employees' annual leave or did not clarify the legal details.

"That being the case, businesses and companies have adopted their own courses of action, differences have arisen in practice.

'Workers cannot be forced to use annual leave at home'

"The issue of forced annual leave needs to be considered beyond the scope of strict and obsolete business law and the principles of labor law. We need to consider the issue from the perspective of human rights law and within the context of labor rights.

"Annual leave is a right and forcing a person to use this annual leave at home is a violation of human rights. It is - in fact - an unexpected situation. It can also be defined as a natural disaster and it needs to be ensured that rights are not affected by this extraordinary situation. The personal rights of employees need to be safeguarded.

"It is also a fact that - despite everything - the obligations arising from this extraordinary situation needs to be clarified by adopting relevant legal regulations so that they will not lead to any abuse of rights." (HA/SD)