Employment law is a field that establishes the balance of rights and obligations between employee and employer and forms the most distinct area of application of the social-state principle. Protecting the rights of the employee is as much an objective of this field as enabling employers to develop lawful human-resources policies.
Scope of Our Service
Bilkay Legal provides comprehensive employment-law services to both individual employees and corporate employers. We deliver support across a broad range — from managing mediation processes to pursuing reinstatement, employee-receivable and work-accident compensation actions, and from drafting employment contracts for employers to managing disciplinary processes.
Our Principal Practice Areas
- Reinstatement actions
- Severance and notice pay receivables
- Overtime, weekly-rest and annual-leave receivables
- Wage receivables and payroll review
- Objection to unfair and trade-union dismissal
- Mobbing and violation-of-personality-rights actions
- Work-accident and occupational-disease compensation
- Non-compete and confidentiality disputes
- Liability of the employer's representative
- Drafting employment contracts and internal regulations
- Mediation processes and collective labour law
- Social Security disputes and service-determination actions
Reinstatement and Termination
Employees within the scope of job security (those with at least six months' seniority at workplaces employing thirty or more workers) have the right to seek reinstatement on the ground that the termination did not rest on a valid reason. An application to a mediator within one month of service of the termination notice is mandatory, and if the mediation ends without agreement an action must be filed within two weeks. Our office assists employees in assessing the validity of the reason for termination, gathering evidence, and professionally managing the mediation and litigation process.
Employee Receivables
Overtime, weekly-rest and national-holiday and public-holiday pay are among the leading items underpaid in most employment relationships. Determining overtime pay requires the joint assessment of working hours, overtime ledgers, entry-and-exit records and witness statements. In severance and notice pay, the decisive factor is by whom and on what ground the termination was made. Our office provides comprehensive technical support in payroll review, objections to expert reports, and the calculation of receivables.
Mandatory mediation: Employee-receivable and reinstatement actions are among the disputes for which an application to a mediator before filing suit is compulsory. The mediation process lasts on average three to four weeks, and a significant portion of disputes is resolved at this stage. Because a mediation settlement has the force of a court judgment, it brings the parties to a resolution incomparably faster than litigation.
Mobbing and Violations of Personality Rights
Systematic, continuous, deliberate conduct in the workplace that amounts to an attack on personality rights is characterised as mobbing. An employee who is the victim of mobbing may seek non-pecuniary compensation for the violation of personality rights, termination of the employment contract for just cause together with severance pay, and compensation for the pecuniary loss arising from the loss of employment. Our office has experience in evidence-gathering strategy (correspondence, witness statements, performance reviews), obtaining expert reports, and conducting the litigation.
Work-Accident and Occupational-Disease Compensation
In a work accident, the employer must pay pecuniary and non-pecuniary compensation to the worker — or, in the event of death, to the relatives deprived of their support — in proportion to the employer's fault. In addition, recourse actions against the employer for the payments made by the Social Security Institution may arise. In these actions, whether occupational-safety measures were taken, whether the worker was trained, and the element of unavoidability are assessed together. Our office provides legal support in the preparation of labour-inspector reports, Social Security correspondence and the employer's defence.
Employer Consultancy
We provide our corporate clients with comprehensive human-resources legal support, including employment-contract templates, internal regulations, disciplinary regulations, performance evaluation, and employee information notices compliant with personal-data-protection law. Conducting collective-dismissal processes lawfully protects the employer from serious compensation risks, particularly during sensitive periods.
Frequently Asked Questions
I resigned — can I still claim severance pay?
As a rule, an employee who resigns cannot claim severance pay. However, where there is just cause (unpaid wages, mobbing, failure to take safety measures, health condition, military service, retirement, a female employee's marriage, and so on), severance pay may be claimed. Because the burden of proving just cause rests with the employee, it is highly important to state the true reason clearly in the resignation letter and to gather evidence in advance.
How do I prove that I worked overtime?
Overtime may be proven by written documents (working records, workplace entry-and-exit data, e-mail and messaging history). Where written evidence is unavailable, witness testimony is the most common method of proof; however, the settled case law of the Court of Cassation provides for an equitable reduction of roughly 30 per cent in the determination of overtime based on witness statements.
Can the employer unilaterally change my place of work?
Under article 22 of the Labour Code, a substantial change in working conditions becomes valid only if it is notified to the employee in writing and accepted in writing within six working days. Otherwise the employer's proposed change is not binding. If the employer imposes the change unilaterally, the employee may terminate the employment contract for just cause and claim severance pay.