Terms Of Termination Prohibition, Mandatory Unpaid Leave, And Short-Term Working Extended
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As our readers will recall from earlier articles on the short-term working subsidy and the prohibition on termination of employment contracts, the government has previously introduced certain time-limited measures in an effort to alleviate the effect Covid-19 had on employers as well as employees. Accordingly;
- With the temporary article 23 introduced to the Unemployment Insurance Law, benefiting from the short-term subsidy was made easier. For applications submitted until 30 June 2020 due to force majeure events originating from Covid-19, the condition of being employed for at least 120 days was reduced to 60 days and the condition of payment of at least 600 days of unemployment insurance premium was reduced to 450 days.
- With the temporary article 10 introduced to the Labour Law, termination of employment contracts were prohibited for a period of 3 months starting from 17 April 2020. The same article also provided that employers will be able to mandate their employees to take a partial or fully unpaid leave for such period.
- Both of these articles authorized the President to extend the said periods for up to 6 months.
The Presidential Decrees numbered 2706 and 2707 published in the Official Gazette dated 30 June 2020 extended the abovementioned periods for 1 month. Accordingly;
- The period of short-term working subsidy has been extended for 1 month for the same employees under the same conditions in workplaces that applied for short-term working before 30 June 2020 due to force majeure events originating from Covid-19. For workplaces where short-term working will end before 30 August 2020, the extended period will apply as of 1 July 2020. However, for workplaces where short-term working will end after 30 August 2020, the extended period will apply as of the date the short-term working subsidy ends.
- The terms of the prohibition on termination of employment contracts, mandatory unpaid leave, and the financial aid for employees on mandatory unpaid leave have been extended for 1 month.
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