Turkish legislation intensively incorporates various international conventions’ norms into its legislation on wages. The International Labour Organization Convention No. 95 “On the Protection of Wages” of 1949, the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights of 1966, is no exception. In particular, Article 55 of the Turkish Constitution states that the state undertakes to take the necessary measures to guarantee workers a wage commensurate with the work performed and the right to enjoy other social benefits (Karabacak & Tonak, 2022). The Republic of Turkey, as a guideline for determining wages, establishes a minimum wage, which considers the country’s economic and social situation.
The Turkish Labor Law and other legislative acts reflect the legal regulation of wages. Generalizes the block of norms governing labor and closely related relations, the head of the Turkish Constitutional Code of Criminal Procedure, which consists of only one article, 55 “Wage Guarantee,” and the principles of exercising the right to work on a reimbursable basis stands apart among the sectoral principles of Turkish labor law (Aslan, 2020). At the same time, by the universally recognized Universal Declaration of Human Rights, article 23 provides that everyone, without any discrimination, has the right to equal pay for equal work and to a just and satisfactory remuneration that ensures a decent living for the worker himself and his families (Buğra, 2020). By the principles enshrined in the Declaration, Art. 10, 55 of the Constitution of Turkey proclaims the right to remuneration for the labor expended without any discrimination and not lower than the minimum wage, which would be adequate to the economic and social situation of the country at a particular historical stage. This law refers to the fundamental labor rights of an employee and, accordingly, are the minimum requirements for an organization (Arisoy & Parlak, 2022). At the same time, it can be considered a principle of legal regulation of wages.
Among other things, from the content of Art. 55 of the Constitution, it is seen that the calculation of wages should be based on the actual labor expended. Equal pay must be established for work of equal duration and intensity. The Constitution of the Republic of Turkey imposes not on the employer but the state the obligation to guarantee workers wages corresponding to the work performed and the right to use other social benefits. Consequently, the state does not adhere to the policy of non-intervention but takes control of the relevant issues regulated by the Constitution and declarations.
Remuneration in Turkey is guaranteed by Art. 55 of the country’s Constitution; at the same time, the legal regulation of the minimum wage is determined by a separate provision. The law compels the employer, in determining a worker’s wages, to follow the rule of establishing a minimum wage. Prior to that, the Labor Law prohibits the setting of wages below the minimum wage but does not contain a definition of the minimum wage. Thus, when setting the minimum wage size, the specific economic and social realities established in the country in the current historical period are taken into account. For such purposes, Turkey has established and operates the Commission for determining the minimum wage, which is assembled by the decision of the Ministry of Labor and Social Security. The said Ministry convenes a commission that must determine the minimum wage level in cases where it finds it necessary to correct the economic and social situation of workers throughout the country or in one of its regions, in all sectors, or some sectors of the economy.
Payroll tax in Turkey is called withholding tax; a certain amount is deducted from wages and salaries received by employees and workers as income tax. The tax is deducted before the income reaches the recipient. For example, factory owners, owners, and dealers must pay taxes on their workers and employees. Public sector institutions also pay wages to their employees; this is done by withholding tax from the wages of workers and employees and paying it to the relevant tax authorities (Baltagi & Başkaya, 2022). A characteristic feature of Turkey is a differentiated approach to a flexible taxation system: depending on the size of wages, the employee pays tax in the amount of 15 to 40%.
Along with the vertical division of wages, when it is determined depending on the time spent or work performed, Turkish law also knows the division of wages horizontally, when it is classified depending on the payments included. So, one of the types of payments included in the composition of wages is a part of the profit of the enterprise received by the worker. Business travel expenses are a particular type of covered cost included in wages. The Turkish legislature is very progressive in its definition of this concept: business travel expenses of a worker include expenses related to forced absenteeism and staying at home, for example, food expenses (Tamkoç & Torul, 2020). These cases often occur when the employer does not provide the worker with corporate transport on time, which is provided for by the employment contract, and the worker is forced to stay at home during the time that is his working time.
References
Arisoy, B., & Parlak, Z. (2022). Indonesia, Malaysia, and Turkey comparative analysis of labour market. Global Journal of Business, Economics and Management: Current Issues, 12(1), 82-94. Web.
Aslan, G. (2020). Institutions for Wage Determination in the EU and Turkey: A Comparative Perspective. In Handbook of research on social and economic development in the European union (pp. 188-203). IGI Global. Web.
Baltagi, B. H., & Başkaya, Y. S. (2022). Spatial wage curves for formal and informal workers in Turkey. Journal of Spatial Econometrics, 3(1), 1-24. Web.
Buğra, A. (2020). Politics of social policy in a late industrializing country: The case of Turkey. Development and Change, 51(2), 442-462. Web.
Karabacak, Y., & Tonak, E. A. (2022). The net social wage in Turkey, 1980–2019. Review of Radical Political Economics, 04866134221099509. Web.
Tamkoç, M. N., & Torul, O. (2020). Cross-sectional facts for macroeconomists: wage, income and consumption inequality in turkey. The Journal of Economic Inequality, 18(2), 239-259. Web.