THE IMPORTANCE OF EMPLOYEES’ ANNUAL LEAVE PERIODS

As it is known, an employee who has worked at least 1 year in the company (including the trial period) is granted with the annual leave.
In some cases it is seen in practice that employer and employee comes to an agreement to waive employee’s right to take annual leave but to be paid for this term instead; this practice has no legal ground.

Moreover, Turkish Labour Code strictly states that the right of taking annual leave is inalienable. Therefore if an employee waives his/her right to take annual leave and accepts to be paid instead; in case of a court action based on the unused annual leaves of the employee, the employer would be obliged to pay “unused annual leave payment” even if it has been paid earlier.

In addition to above, since the employer will compulsorily hold the burden of proof in case of a court action, we would advise the employers to show the annual leave periods in depth in employees’ annual leave sheets.