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Alcedo Atthis

Common Kingfisher (Halcyon smyrnensis), named after İzmir city of Turkey, is mostly observed in the Eastern Mediterranean Region. Destruction of their habitats, wetlands, is the greatest threat to their species.

Legal Advisory to the Corporates and Employers at Trade Union Processes, Collective Bargaining and Agreement Processes

In Çukur & Partners Law Firm, we have been advising a vast number of corporates, companies and employers from various industries whose workplaces have an authorized trade union and operate under collective bargaining processes and collective employment agreements for years.

In this regard, Çukur & Partners’ employment & labor lawyers have gained in-depth know-how and experience on advising at trade union processes and collective agreements on the employer side.

Çukur & Partners Law Firm human resources law team provides full range of legal consultancy and advocacy services in all aspects of working and employment life cycles of companies whose employees are members of and their workplaces are authorized by trade unions, in close day-to-day cooperation with the C-level and Board managements and HR teams of companies. 

We are aware that this is a very new, mostly unexpected situation for employers and company executives who are experiencing a labor union process for the first time in their workplaces and may affect and transform all industrial relations.

Besides, we recognise the sensitivity of company management and employers to ensure that the unionization process does not adversely affect labor peace and productivity in the workplace, before taking concrete steps and creating a clear approach on this issue. In many of our experiences, we have seen closely how difficult it can be for employers and human resources teams to manage situations in which more than one union competes and conflicts over authority, or when some of the employees want to be a union member while another part of them has an anti-union attitude.

Even we have seen in some experiences that instant actions and decisions that can be taken by the employer without evaluating the potential outcomes in all its dimensions may make them accused or responsible against unionization rights, create new and deeper problems, threaten the work peace in the workplace, and cause erosion in the reputation of the company and company managers.

Therefore, Our HR law team is aware of unionization processes and trade union relations’ particularities that must be managed with sensitivity, attention and care from the beginning to the end. 

The employment & labor lawyers of Çukur & Partners have been providing a highly strategic, multidimensional and relationship management-based legal service to companies and employers for many years, from the very first moment of the union authority discussions to the point where it becomes legally clear whether the workplace has become a union or not. At this point, our priority is always to comply with the law and regulations, work peace, protect the reputation and rights of the company and the employer, and the long-term interests of the parties.

We understand that there is a need for healthy and sustainable communication with the trade union and close coordination on legal issues in workplaces where there is an authorized union. In addition, we always consider that business decisions and corporate developments which may have an impact on employees must be managed in full compliance with employment & labor laws.

In this regard, we assist employers in creating and maintaining a legal basis where they can successfully manage their industrial relations in this special position, and where they can proceed with legal actions that are based on sound communication and have strong foundations, in workplaces operating under trade union authority.

Thus, it is our priority to reduce and manage both employments, labor and trade union conflicts and human resources disputes at the individual and collective level. We strive to transform union processes into a cooperation relationship that will create a facilitating and accelerating effect, not a barrier against the growth and development journey of companies. 

In legal processes such as corporate or financial restructuring, reorganisation, merger and acquisition (M&A) public offering, the presence of union authority in the workplace can complicate legal issues even more. We also have a special service program at Çukur and Partners Law Firm that we have developed for these restructuring and reorganization processes that affect human resources and industrial relations.

It is clear that negotiation and communication management, which requires special knowledge and expertise, is a sensitive legal process and carries a very special value. Collective bargaining agreements are critical transactions that play an important role in the future of the company, both for companies that are members of an employer’s union and carry out collective bargaining negotiations through these employer unions, and for companies that make collective bargaining agreements on a workplace scale on their own.

When collective bargaining negotiations do not result in an agreement, they are issues that can open the door to processes such as strikes and lockouts that may seriously damage labor peace and performance of the corporate.

The human resources and labor law attorneys of Çukur & Partners Law Firm are a highly experienced team in negotiation, management of relations and communication with worker and employer unions, collective labor & employment disputes and trade union disputes from the beginning to the end of the collective bargaining process.