According to Article 46 of the Labor Law No. 4857, the employee has to be paid the full wage of that day without any work for the unworked week holiday day.
However regarding the paid holiday in Turkey, the following periods should also be taken into account in the calculation of the time worked;
- The periods that are not worked but are counted as working time in the law (for example, the periods specified in Article 66) and the holiday arising from the law or contract (such as general holidays), which are paid or not paid daily wages in Turkey.
- According to the 2nd Supplementary Article of the Law, the periods of compassionate leave periods that should be given to the employees for marriage, birth or adoption of a child by his/her spouse, or three days in case of death of his/her parents, spouse, sibling or child, and up to 10 days in whole or in parts within a year for the treatment of his/her child who is at least 70% disabled or has a chronic disease, provided that it is used only by one of the working parents and based on a sickness report.
- Other leaves granted by the employer to stay within the one-week period and sickness and rest leaves granted with a doctor’s report.
- Days not worked in the event that the work in the workplace is holidayed by the employer on one or more days of the week without a compelling and economic reason.
In paid holiday in Turkey, the following principles should be taken into consideration;
i. In the event of reasons that cause work to stop for more than a week at a workplace, the half wage to be paid to the employee will also be paid for the week holiday day (Article 46 of the Labour Law).
ii. In workplaces where the percentage method is applied, week holiday pay shall be paid by the employer to the employee (Article 46 of the Labour Code).
iii. In case of temporary incapacity for work, week holiday pay shall be paid in Turkey by the paying institution or funds on the basis of the amount of temporary incapacity for work (Article 48 of the Labour Law).
iv. The holiday wage of the worker is the wage per day according to the days worked. In cases where the wage is paid by piece, lump sum, lump sum or percentage method, the holiday wage will be found by dividing the wage earned in the payment period by the days worked in the same period instead of the wage earned in the payment period. If the wage is paid by the hour, the holiday pay shall be 7.5 times the hourly wage (Article 49 of the Labour Law).
v. If the worker is salaried monthly, the holiday pay is already paid within the monthly wage in Turkey.
vi. In the calculation of the week holiday wage, the bare wage should be taken as a basis, and in addition to this, overtime wages, wages, premiums and social benefits received for preparation, completion, cleaning works outside normal hours as a basic worker of the workplace should not be taken into account (Article 50 of the Labour Law).
vii. In case of part-time work, week holiday pay should be paid for the week holiday for the partial time worked during the day in Turkey.
viii. Apart from these, there is another practice called week holiday work in practice. According to the legal regulations, it is forbidden for workers to work more than 6 days a week. However, if the workers temporarily do not use week holidays for various reasons, the work they have done on these days should be accepted as overtime work or working for excessive periods according to the total working hours applied in the workplace and should be paid accordingly. Practically, for the employee who works on the day that should be a week holiday, the wage for that day should be accrued as 2.5 daily wages. However, if the employee works with a monthly fixed wage, since the week holiday wage is already included in the monthly wage, the accrual of 1.5 wages for this day will be sufficient. Although the day is mentioned here, the total number of hours worked on the week holiday day should be taken as the basis when calculating the overtime wage (or overtime wage).
ix. Another issue that needs to be addressed regarding week holiday pay is the collective use of week holidays. In practice, especially in workplaces such as fuel stations, mines, road construction, etc. far from the centre, it is seen that week holidays are collected over 4 days for a period of one month with the consent of the employee and given continuously. In such a case, even with the consent of the employee, the other 3 days except the first day are not accepted as week holidays. In such a case, the wage paid for the first day is considered as week holiday and the wage paid for the other 3 days is considered as paid holiday pay in Turkey. Again, according to this fact, it is fixed that the employee worked on the days that should have been the previous 3 week holidays. If for these days, it would be appropriate to deduct the wage to be accrued for 3 days of the 4-day leave from the overtime wage accrued for working on the day that should have been a week holiday as mentioned above, considering the location of the workplace and the consent of the worker.
