Municipal companies in terms of labor law

Municipal companies are private law legal entities established under the Turkish Commercial Code to operate in the fields of duties and services of municipalities. These companies, which have become widespread since the 1980s in order to increase efficiency in public services, have turned into a practice to the detriment of workers and have deprived them of certain rights. One of the most important regulations intro-duced to prevent these abuses is the Decree Law No. 696 on Making Certain Regula-tions under the State of Emergency. With the said Decree, subcontractor workers in municipalities were transferred to municipal companies as employees and service pro-curement for personnel procurement in public institutions was prohibited. In the doc-trine, the Decree Law No. 696 is criticized from various aspects. In our study, the legal nature and fields of activity of municipal companies and the controversial issues of these companies in the context of individual and collective labor law are discussed. In this context, the main employer - subcontractor relationship established between the municipality and the municipal company and its scope, the transfer of subcontractor workers working in municipalities to municipal companies and whether these workers have the right to receive wages, wage increases and additional payments, the determi-nation of the line of business of municipal companies and whether municipal company workers can benefit from the Public Sector Framework Agreement Protocol are dis-cussed within the framework of judicial decisions and doctrinal opinions.