Lock-out in Turkish labour law

Lockout is an instrument of struggle that may be used in collective labour disputes in Turkish labour law. This instrument of struggle was granted to employers in return for the right to strike granted to workers. Lockout is regulated in the Constitution and the Law, but is not treated as a right. The purpose of a lockout is to enable the employer to defend itself against a strike by the trade union in a collective labour dispute. In this respect, in our law, lockout is considered as a defense lockout and it is applied in case of a strike. The definition of lockout is included in the Law No. 6356 on Trade Unions and Collective Bargaining Agreements. Accordingly, a lockout is the collective dismissal of workers by the employer or the employer's representative, either by his own decision or in compliance with the decision of an organization, in such a way as to cause a complete cessation of activity in the workplace. The decision to lockout and its implementation are subject to formal requirements in the law. The authority to decide on lockout is vested in the employers' union or the employer who is not a member of the union. The situations in which a lockout decision can be taken, its conditions, prohibition and postponement, legal and illegal lockouts and the consequences of these institutions are expressed in the law and are regulated with common provisions with strikes in many respects. Today, despite the applicability of the strike and the fact that it is an instrument that can be directly applied in collective labor disputes, lockout is a practice that has negative effects on the employer's side as well as on the workers and on the labor force in total and is not frequently applied recently. The aim of our study is to examine the lockout in Turkish labour law in detail within the framework of legal regulations. In our study, firstly, the concepts of labor dispute and strike will be mentioned, then the concept of lockout and the legal development of lockout will be emphasized. Finally, legal lockout, lockout prohibitions, postponement and abuse of lockout and illegal lockout will be analyzed.