Is Saturday Considered as an Annual Leave Day?

"Article 46 - The employees working in establishments covered by this Act shall be allowed to take a rest for a minimum of twenty-four hours (weekly rest day) without interruption within a seven-day time period, provided they have worked on the days preceding the weekly rest day as indicated in Article 63."

The statements about working hours are included in Article 63 of the Labor Law as below:

"Article 63 - In general terms, working time is forty-five hours maximum weekly. Unless the contrary has been decided, working time shall be divided equally by the days of the week worked at the establishment."

Per these rules, the Supreme Court has clarified whether Saturdays would need to be considered as annual leave day or not for the workplaces that work 5 days a week and complete 45 hours within 5 days in a week.

The resolution/principal decision of the Supreme Court about that issue is as below:

The weekend holiday is defined as the one day/24 hours rest period after 45 hours of work within a week per the above-mentioned articles of the Labor Law No. 4857. The precondition to be entitled for a weekend holiday is to work 6 workdays within a week. Accordingly, Saturday is considered a workday. And Saturday is not considered as a weekend holidays during the annual leave period calculation.

The decision that Saturdays are deemed as weekend holidays, is considered under administrative leaves of the workplaces.

The Supreme Court Offices no:9 and 22 have discussed the several opinions and upon their merge process, they have published a principal decision. And, per that decision: If Saturdays and Sundays are stated as weekend holidays on contract, these days cannot be considered as an annual leave day per Article 56/5 of the Labor Law. In other words, Saturdays and Sundays are deducted fromthe annual leave period. However, if there is a statement that Saturdays are considered as workday during the annual leave period calculation or Saturdays would not be deducted from the annual leave period, these statements would be applicable and only Sundays would be deducted from the annual leave period.

In addition to the above, the Supreme Court had announced a decision for a case on 02.03.2021 (Y9HD 2.03.2021 E.2021/897 - K.2021/5272) stating that on the employment contract, the Saturdays are not stated as weekend holidays and there is no clear statement explaining that Saturdays are not considered as annual leave period. Accordingly, the request of the employee for consideration of Saturdays as weekend holidays (and not to take into account during the annual leave period calculation) has been rejected.

Based on the above rules, the conclusion for Saturdays can be as below:

1. If there is no statement about Saturdays in the employment contract, Saturdays would be considered as an annual leave day.

For instance, if an employee takes 14 days, 12 days would be considered as annual leave period (only 2 Sundays would be deducted).

2. If Saturdays are considered as weekend holidays on the job contract or if the workdays are stated as between Monday-Friday on the contract Saturdays would not be considered as annual leave period.

For instance, if an employee takes 14 days, 10 days would be considered as annual leave period (2 Saturdays and Sundays would be deducted).

3. Although Saturdays are considered as weekend holidays in the employment contract, if there is also a statement that Saturdays would be considered as annual leave day, that statement would be applicable, and Saturdays would be considered as annual leave day.

For instance, if an employee takes 14 days, 12 days would be considered as annual leave period (only 2 Sundays would be deducted).

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