The Regulation of work-time in Turkish labour law

ABSTRACTThe work contract causes the employee to execute the liability they have and alsocauses the employee to work under the employer for a specified period of time. Thisspecified period is defined as ?work-time?. The initial labour law of France and ILO?s initialconvention was concerned with work-time, which has been the most controversial subjectswithin Labour Law.This matter has also been given the utmost importance in the Turkish Labour Law, asthe work-time has been newly regulated with Law No. 4857. In place of the strict regulationsin Law No. 1475 on Labour Law, with consideration of the criticism in that period, moreflexible rules have been implemented with this law.In this study, the rules regulating the work-time in the new Law No. 4857 on LabourLaw have been analysed and, where required, comparisons have been made with theprevious Law No. 1475 on Labour Law. This study also evaluates the related regulationscarried out by the European Union Directive No. 93/104 and by ILO.In the first section, the definition of work-time has been given; the historicaldevelopments of the regulations related with work-time and the related main principles havebeen explored. Furthermore, the regulation methods of the work- time have been considered.In the second section, the manner in which the legal work-time has been regulated accordingto the Turkish Labour Law has been indicated. The third section explores the exceeding oflegal work-time.