AKP government issued an amendment in occupational health and safety regulations in workplaces on May 21. According to the new amendment, the occupational health and safety procedures are to be personally handled by the employers of workplaces with lesser workplace hazards and that employ less than 50 workers. The previous regulation, on the other hand, limited this possibility to the employers of workplaces of lesser workplace hazards and with less than 10 workers.
The employers have to complete their training to get their certificate. The training will be given by the Ministry of National Education, and the unions and confederations of employers like Turkish Union of Chambers and Commodity Exchanges (TOBB) and the Confederation of Turkish Tradesmen and Craftsmen (TESK). The employers will be able to complete their training through distant education. The success criterion of the training is getting an exam score of 50 out of 100.
Considering that around 90 percent of workplaces in Turkey employ less than 10 workers, the new regulation means de facto annihilation of occupational health and safety regulations in workplaces.
According to the previous schedule, the necessity of employing an occupational health and safety expert in workplaces with lesser workplace hazards and that employ less than 50 workers should have started on June 1, 2017. However, through an omnibus bill approved in Turkish parliament in 2017, it was postponed to June 1, 2020.
This new amendment approved on May 21 once more regulated the occupational health and safety necessity according to the interests of the capitalists. The AKP government has also recently announced that it has temporarily stopped occupational health and safety inspections by experts until the end of June 2018 due to the elections to be held on June 24.
While the AKP government imposes several regulations about labour practices to please the capitalists, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan personally declared that the state of emergency declared after the July 15 coup attempt in 2016 is to the benefit of them since it serves to ban strikes.
During the AKP government's rule for 16 years, at least 20 thousand workers lost their lives in occupational murders.
