Employers have liabilities for various legal regulations, especially the Occupational Health and Safety Regulation. Employer’s first and foremost liability is appointing an occupational physician and an occupational health and safety expert, in circumstance workplace fulfil the required conditions appointing a medical personnel instead of occupational physician.
However, as regulated in the Occupational Health and Safety Regulation, this obligation can be fulfilled by obtaining services from the Joint Health and Safety Units in the absence of qualified personnel in the workplace. Joint Health and Safety Health Units ease the liability of employers in terms of notifications to Social Security Institution, primarily. In the event that employers receive services from the Joint Health and Security Units, these units are responsible for administrative fines –about statement of employment, statement of termination of employment, insurance premium- instead of the employers. As a matter of fact, according to the Occupational Health and Safety Regulation, the Ministry of Labor and Social Security’s authorization of the Joint Health and Security Units is dependent on the Units to submit employment declarations of the personnel to be employed within its own body. In addition, according to Article 14/7 of the Regulation, OHS personnel whose transactions are not approved by the Ministry’s General Directorate Occupational Health and Safety can’t fulfil a duty. All of these regulations mentioned above aim reduce of employer liabilities for the notifications made to the Social Security Institution.
The Ministry of Labor and Social Security is expanding the permissions of the OHS electronic system, as the transactions of the Social Insurance Institution are increasingly transferred to the electronic environment. By this means, the General Directorate don’t demand for physical files about OHS obligations from the employers, and transactions made by the OHS personnel with the Employer can be viewed through the OHS electronic system.
In the announcement dated 14.11.2022 published on the website of the Ministry of Labor and Social Security Occupational Health and Safety Unit, employers submit statement of employment for each workplace for different registration number. It is stated that the workplaces registered under the same tax number or being within the same company will not be taken into account in the insurance control. With this update made in the OHS electronic system, OHS experts will only be able to conduct a transactions for the workplace with active insurance status through the OHS electronic system.
It is clear that the new regulations in OHS electronic system may lead employers to receive services from Joint Health and Security Units gradually, and since no new dated announcement was published after the announcement dated 14.11.2022, employers expect the Ministry of Labor and Social Security’s enlightening explanation.
Türküm Türkmen
Attorney at Law
