Mobbing in Turkish Labour Law

Mobbing seen as a phenomenon in every society that has existed primarily as from the first day when the working life started. The issue for which attention will be drawn is that mobbing is the most rapidly raising workplace problem in our present day, as stated by International Labor Organization. Nevertheless, the mobbing has became popular particularly in the last 20 years, this leads any conflict experienced and any unfair behavior imposed to be perceived as mobbing. Notably the repeated and systematic structure of the mobbing has shown a distinctive feature considering other term of law procedures. Although definition of mobbing is not included, pursuant to the article 417 of Turkish Code of Obligations that is the first legal regulation regarding the mobbing, psychological health of the workers is included into the surveillance obligation scope of the employer as well as the physical health, it has been legally accepted that the employer must immediately take measures for providing comfortable, peaceful and ethical working environment in the workplace and preventing the workers from exposing to the mobbing and holding the exposed ones harmless. Nonetheless, many cases opened about the mobbing in our country are dismissed due to the fact that behaviors do not feature mobbing or mobbing cannot be proved. Indeed, revealing and proving the physical violence is so easier than the psychological violence. As such, as will be seen from the resolutions of Court of Appeal in the recent years, the evidence at one hundred percent, in other words a final and absolute evidence is not sought in the mobbing cases, it is understood that the case will be regarded as having been evidenced with the types of evidence due to equity and justice. Starting from this point, primarily the mobbing concept was explained in all aspects, normative regulations related with mobbing in the international documents, foreign country and Turkish public law, administrative law and private law were examined. Then, the cases which may be hinged on the mobbing issue were evaluated by examining it in business relation and its effect on mutual right and liabilities and finally, the issue regarding that how the mobbing should be proved was examined. Keywords mobbing, psychological harassment, the evidence of the mobbing, mobbing case, mobbing compensation, bullying.