EXTENDED SUMMARY

Under the Occupational Health and Safety Act No. 6331, various regulations have been enacted to ensure occupational health and safety at workplaces and to improve health and safety conditions. One of the most important requirements at the workplace is to protect employees against the risks that may arise at their workplace and to ensure full occupational health and safety. To this end, many obligations have been imposed on employers. One of the important measures that employers should take is to ensure the organisation of occupational health and safety at the workplace and to assign occupational health and safety specialists to workplaces. According to the Occupational Health and Safety Act, employers shall employ occupational safety specialists to provide labour protection services, including activities related to the protection and prevention of occupational risks. An occupational safety specialist is defined in Article 3 of the Law as an engineer, architect or technician who is authorised by the Ministry to work in the field of occupational health and safety and who holds an expertise certificate. The principles of occupational safety experts are also regulated in the Regulation on the Duties, Authorities, Responsibilities and Training of Occupational Safety Specialists. The same definition is made in this Regulation.

According to Article 6 of the above-mentioned Act, in order to provide occupational health and safety services, including activities related to the protection and prevention of occupational risks, the employer shall appoint an employee as an occupational safety specialist, occupational physician and other health personnel. If there is a shortage of personnel in the enterprise who are competent enough to be designated, the employer shall appoint a joint health and safety unit to provide all or part of these services. Provided that the employer has the required qualifications and documentation, these services can be provided by the employer, taking into account the hazard class and the number of employees.

The legal relationship between the specialist and the employer is based on an employment contract. The basic elements of the employment contract, i.e. performance, remuneration and subordination, must be present in the relationship between them. Subordination means that the employee performs the work in accordance with the employer’s orders and instructions. For OHS specialists, subordination should be limited to administrative dependence. Specialists cannot take orders and instructions from the employer to carry out their profession; their professional independence must be guaranteed. Otherwise, it won’t be possible to ensure health and safety at work.

For this purpose, Article 8 of Law No. 6331 stipulates that the rights and authorities of occupational safety specialists may not be restricted in the execution of their duties, and that they shall seek and maintain professional independence and observe the rules of ethics in the execution of their functions. Article 35 of the Regulation on the Duties, Powers, Responsibilities and Training of Occupational Safety Specialists also states that specialists shall be equal and not be subject to any influence in making recommendations to employers and employees according to the health and safety risks and shall act in cooperation with both parties. It is also emphasised that the results of the professional independence can’t be used against the specialists and the contracts can’t contain conditions that may limit the professional independence and the rights and authorities of the specialists.

The fact that specialists are dependent on the employer, in particular that they receive their wages from the employer, and that they are subject to pressure from the employer to terminate their employment contracts, are the main factors that negatively affect their independence and, consequently, occupational health and safety services. The relevant regulations are not sufficient to provide complete protection in this respect. As a result, the objective expected of occupational safety and health professionals cannot be achieved and the objective of ensuring occupational health and safety, which is one of the most important issues in the workplace, cannot be achieved. In this respect, the factors that threaten the professional independence of specialists must be identified and solutions must be proposed.