Construction projects are inherently high-risk operations.
Employees may work at height, operate heavy machinery, enter excavations, handle electrical systems, work around cranes and lifting equipment, use hazardous substances and perform multiple activities simultaneously within a constantly changing work environment.
For this reason, occupational health and safety in Turkish construction projects is not treated merely as an internal company policy or technical recommendation.
It is a statutory legal obligation.
The primary legal framework is established by Law No. 6331 on Occupational Health and Safety, supported by the Regulation on Occupational Health and Safety in Construction Works (Yapı İşlerinde İş Sağlığı ve Güvenliği Yönetmeliği) and numerous additional regulations concerning work equipment, personal protective equipment, occupational health services, emergency arrangements, employee training and risk assessment.
The Ministry of Labour and Social Security expressly identifies the Construction Works Regulation as the principal technical regulation establishing minimum occupational health and safety requirements for construction workplaces. The regulation applies not only to new construction but also to activities including renovation, repair, restoration, maintenance, painting and certain cleaning works falling within its scope.
Failure to comply can lead simultaneously to:
administrative fines,
suspension of work,
civil compensation liability,
Social Security Institution recourse claims,
and, where an accident causes injury or death,
criminal investigation and imprisonment of responsible individuals.
The legal consequences can therefore extend far beyond the construction company itself.
Project managers, employer representatives, subcontractor managers, technical personnel and other persons whose breach of duty contributed to an accident may also become part of the investigation depending on their actual responsibilities.
1. The Employer Has the Primary Duty to Protect Workers
The starting point under Turkish occupational health and safety law is the employer’s general duty of protection.
Law No. 6331 requires employers to ensure employees’ work-related health and safety. This includes preventing occupational risks, providing training and information, establishing the necessary organisation, supplying appropriate tools and equipment, monitoring compliance with safety measures and continuously improving existing precautions. The employer must also conduct or commission a risk assessment and consider whether employees are suitable for the work assigned to them.
The Turkish Code of Obligations reinforces this obligation.
Article 417 requires the employer to take all measures necessary to ensure occupational health and safety and to keep all required equipment and tools available.
This is important because liability does not arise only from violating one specific technical regulation.
In serious accident litigation, the broader question is often:
Did the employer take every reasonably necessary measure that a careful employer should have taken to prevent the accident?
The answer may involve regulations, technical standards, expert reports, risk assessments, training records, inspection documents and the actual conditions at the construction site.
2. Hiring a Safety Expert Does Not Transfer the Employer’s Responsibility
One of the most important misconceptions in Turkish construction practice is:
“We appointed an occupational safety specialist, so responsibility belongs to the specialist.”
That is incorrect.
Employers may appoint occupational safety experts, occupational physicians and other health personnel or may obtain services from authorised external occupational health and safety organisations.
However, using external professionals does not eliminate the employer’s fundamental legal responsibility.
The Ministry of Labour expressly states that employers remain responsible for ensuring that appointed occupational health and safety professionals can perform their duties effectively, providing them with necessary resources and implementing legally compliant precautions notified to the employer.
The safety expert is therefore not a legal shield protecting management from every accident.
If the employer receives a written warning that an unsafe scaffold must be corrected but continues the work without taking action, the existence of an occupational safety specialist may actually become evidence that management had been informed of the danger.
3. Risk Assessment Is Mandatory
Risk assessment is one of the central elements of the Turkish occupational health and safety system.
The Ministry confirms that all workplaces falling within Law No. 6331 are required to perform risk assessments.
For a construction project, a meaningful risk assessment should not be a generic document copied from another project.
Construction conditions change continuously.
Excavation may be the principal risk during the first stage.
Later, the dominant risks may involve:
- structural work;
- cranes;
- scaffolding;
- working at height;
- electrical installations;
- façade works;
- mechanical systems;
- confined areas;
- demolition;
- temporary access routes;
- or simultaneous subcontractor operations.
A legally effective safety system must therefore respond to the actual conditions on site.
A risk assessment that exists only as paperwork but does not reflect real operations will provide limited protection in an accident investigation.
4. Prevention Must Come Before Personal Protective Equipment
Turkish occupational safety law follows a hierarchy of preventive measures.
The first objective is generally to eliminate risks at their source.
Collective protection should, where reasonably possible, be preferred over measures that protect only the individual worker.
The Ministry particularly emphasises this principle in relation to working at height. Appropriate collective systems such as guardrails and safe platforms should normally be prioritised, while personal fall-protection systems are used where collective protection cannot completely remove the risk or cannot reasonably be applied.
This distinction is important after an accident.
An employer may argue:
“The worker had a safety harness.”
But this may not answer the legal question if a proper edge-protection system, safe scaffold or other collective protection measure should have been installed in the first place.
Providing personal protective equipment does not automatically discharge the employer’s entire occupational safety obligation.
5. Construction Projects Have Additional Project-Specific Duties
Construction projects are subject to obligations that go beyond ordinary workplace safety management.
The Construction Works Regulation introduced specific concepts including:
project supervisor (proje sorumlusu),
health and safety coordinator (sağlık ve güvenlik koordinatörü),
health and safety plan (sağlık ve güvenlik planı),
and
health and safety file.
The Ministry states that the Regulation requires construction-specific health and safety planning and, where applicable, prior notification before construction begins. It also requires coordination during both the project preparation and implementation stages.
These rules reflect an important principle:
Construction safety must begin during project planning—not after workers arrive at the site.
A design decision can itself create safety risks.
Construction sequencing, access routes, working areas, equipment positioning and the time allocated to particular phases should therefore be considered in advance.
6. A Health and Safety Plan Must Be Project-Specific
The health and safety plan is one of the most important documents in a construction project.
The Ministry explains that the employer responsible for the construction area or the project supervisor is responsible for preparing or ensuring preparation of the health and safety plan.
The plan should address risks arising from the characteristics of the particular project.
For example, a 40-storey tower construction project requires a fundamentally different safety strategy from a two-storey villa renovation.
Relevant issues may include:
- site organisation;
- temporary structures;
- access and traffic routes;
- excavation safety;
- scaffolding;
- working at height;
- lifting operations;
- crane locations;
- electrical installations;
- emergency evacuation;
- fire;
- hazardous substances;
- material storage;
- demolition activities;
- and interaction between different subcontractors.
The health and safety plan should also be updated as the project develops and site conditions change.
A construction project is dynamic.
Its safety documentation must therefore also be dynamic.
7. Multiple Contractors Require Coordination
Modern construction projects frequently involve dozens of subcontractors working simultaneously.
A principal contractor may employ subcontractors for:
electrical works,
mechanical installations,
façade construction,
steel works,
concrete,
landscaping,
elevators,
fire systems,
roofing,
and many other specialised tasks.
This creates an additional layer of risk because one contractor’s activities may endanger another contractor’s employees.
Where more than one employer or subcontractor is present, the Construction Works Regulation requires the appointment of one or more health and safety coordinators in the circumstances regulated by the legislation.
The coordinator’s role includes facilitating cooperation between employers, following implementation of the health and safety plan and coordinating necessary controls during construction.
This means that construction safety cannot be fragmented into isolated subcontractor systems.
Someone must consider the project as a whole.
8. The Main Contractor Cannot Simply Blame the Subcontractor
Subcontracting is particularly important from a legal liability perspective.
The Ministry explains that subcontractors are independently responsible for occupational health and safety duties toward their own employees, including training, risk assessment and provision of occupational safety services.
However, the existence of subcontractors does not eliminate the responsibilities of the principal employer.
The principal employer must take subcontractor operations into account in the overall safety organisation and coordinate occupational health and safety activities between contractors. The Ministry also emphasises the joint responsibility arising within principal employer–subcontractor relationships under Turkish labour law.
Therefore, after a serious construction accident, a defence such as:
“He was not our employee; he worked for the subcontractor.”
does not necessarily resolve liability.
The investigation will normally examine:
Who controlled the worksite?
Who had authority to stop unsafe work?
Who provided the scaffold?
Who organised the area?
Who identified the risk?
Who failed to correct it?
Who supervised the subcontractor?
And whose conduct contributed causally to the accident?
The contractual allocation of responsibilities between companies is relevant, but it does not automatically eliminate statutory obligations owed to workers.
9. Employees Must Receive Occupational Health and Safety Training
Employees must be informed and trained about the risks associated with their work.
The Ministry states that employees must receive training appropriate to the nature of the work and the workplace risks before they begin actual work. Workers coming from another employer to perform work in dangerous or very dangerous workplaces cannot simply be allowed to begin without the required safety training documentation.
Construction-specific training may become particularly important for activities such as:
- working at height;
- scaffolding;
- lifting operations;
- electrical work;
- use of machinery;
- confined-space work;
- demolition;
- and other high-risk activities.
The Ministry specifically emphasises that employees performing work at height must receive training regarding hazards, risks, control measures and safe working methods.
Signing a generic “training attendance sheet” may not necessarily establish that the worker received effective training concerning the actual danger that caused an accident.
10. Medical Fitness Must Be Considered
Health surveillance is another core employer obligation.
Under Law No. 6331, persons working in dangerous and very dangerous jobs cannot begin work without a health report confirming that they are medically suitable for the relevant job. The Ministry confirms that occupational health surveillance and periodic examinations are mandatory according to the applicable workplace risk level and occupational circumstances.
This becomes particularly important in construction activities requiring:
working at height,
heavy physical effort,
operation of machinery,
exposure to noise,
dust,
chemicals,
vibration,
or other specific occupational risks.
A worker who is technically qualified for a task may still be medically unsuitable for performing it safely.
11. Machinery and Work Equipment Must Be Safe
Construction safety disputes frequently involve cranes, lifting equipment, scaffolds, platforms, machinery and temporary installations.
The employer’s duties include ensuring that equipment is technically appropriate, properly maintained and inspected where required.
The Ministry’s construction guidance specifically identifies technical maintenance and periodic control of plant and equipment as part of employer and subcontractor responsibilities.
After an accident involving equipment, investigators may therefore request:
maintenance records,
inspection reports,
periodic control documents,
operator qualifications,
manufacturer instructions,
and evidence showing whether identified defects had been corrected.
Failure to keep proper records can make it significantly more difficult to demonstrate compliance.
12. Serious and Imminent Danger Can Lead to Work Stoppage
Occupational safety law does not require authorities to wait for someone to die before intervening.
Article 25 of Law No. 6331 allows work to be stopped where conditions relating to buildings, working methods, work equipment or other circumstances create a life-threatening danger for employees, subject to the statutory procedure.
This is particularly significant for construction projects.
An order stopping work can create consequences far beyond the immediate administrative sanction:
project delays,
contractual delay penalties,
financing costs,
claims by purchasers,
subcontractor disputes,
and reputational damage.
For developers and contractors, occupational health and safety compliance is therefore also part of project schedule risk management.
13. Employees Also Have Safety Obligations
Occupational health and safety is not exclusively an employer obligation.
Employees are also required to comply with safety rules, properly use equipment and protective systems and avoid endangering themselves or others.
However, an employer generally cannot avoid responsibility simply by asserting:
“The worker was careless.”
The first question remains whether the employer had created a safe system of work.
For example, if an employee fails to use a safety harness, investigators may examine:
Was the worker trained?
Was appropriate equipment supplied?
Was its use supervised?
Was collective protection available?
Was the worker repeatedly allowed to work unsafely?
Did supervisors know of the violation?
Was unsafe work stopped?
Employee fault may affect the allocation of responsibility, but it does not automatically erase employer failures.
14. Workers May Refuse Work in Serious and Imminent Danger
Law No. 6331 provides employees with protection where serious and imminent danger exists.
The legislation recognises a right to refrain from working (çalışmaktan kaçınma hakkı) under the statutory conditions.
This is important in construction because workers may encounter sudden hazards such as unstable scaffolding, excavation collapse risk, unsafe electrical installations or dangerous lifting operations.
A safety culture that penalises workers for reporting genuine danger can itself undermine the employer’s compliance system.
15. What Must Happen After a Construction Accident?
A serious accident triggers immediate legal and administrative obligations.
For employees covered by employment contracts, the employer must report the work accident to the competent law-enforcement authorities immediately and to the Social Security Institution within three business days after the accident, subject to the specific statutory rules concerning situations where the employer learns of the accident later.
Failure to report within the statutory period can itself produce financial consequences.
SGK states that late notification may result in recovery from the employer of temporary incapacity payments made until notification, together with an administrative fine.
The employer should also preserve the accident scene where appropriate, secure evidence and conduct the occupational safety investigation required by the applicable legislation.
Documents that later become critical may include:
CCTV footage,
site photographs,
witness statements,
risk assessments,
safety plans,
training documents,
personal protective equipment records,
inspection reports,
toolbox talks,
occupational safety specialist reports,
equipment inspection documents,
site diaries,
and subcontractor records.
Accident evidence should be treated as potential litigation evidence from the first moment.
16. Administrative Fines Can Be Significant
Article 26 of Law No. 6331 contains administrative penalties for numerous occupational health and safety violations.
The Ministry of Labour publishes updated penalty schedules every year and has published the 2026 administrative fine schedule applicable under Law No. 6331.
Violations potentially generating administrative penalties include failures relating to matters such as:
- occupational health and safety services;
- risk assessment;
- health surveillance;
- accident reporting;
- employee training;
- information duties;
- employee representatives;
- occupational safety committees;
- personal protective equipment;
- inspections;
- and other statutory requirements.
The applicable amount depends on the specific violation, and certain penalties are differentiated according to factors such as workplace hazard classification, number of employees, continuing violations or the number of affected workers. The Ministry and SGK expressly note that accident-reporting penalties are adjusted according to statutory criteria and are updated annually.
Therefore, occupational safety violations can produce substantial cumulative administrative exposure.
17. Administrative Penalties Do Not Replace Civil Liability
Payment of an administrative fine does not settle the injured worker’s compensation claims.
The employer may separately face civil liability.
Article 417 of the Turkish Code of Obligations establishes the employer’s obligation to ensure occupational health and safety, while general compensation principles may lead to liability for losses resulting from violation of that duty.
Depending on the consequences of the accident, claims may include issues such as:
medical losses not otherwise covered,
temporary or permanent loss of earning capacity,
economic losses,
support-deprivation claims in fatal accidents,
and non-pecuniary damages.
The amount of civil liability will depend on the circumstances, including fault allocation, causation, disability consequences, earnings and other case-specific factors.
18. SGK May Recover Payments From the Employer
The Social Security Institution’s payment of benefits to an injured employee does not necessarily protect the employer from further financial liability.
Article 21 of Law No. 5510 provides a statutory recourse mechanism where a work accident or occupational disease occurred because of the employer’s intent or conduct contrary to occupational health and safety legislation.
As a result, SGK may provide statutory benefits to the injured worker or beneficiaries and subsequently seek recovery from responsible employers under the legal conditions.
This creates an additional financial layer beyond the employee’s direct compensation claims.
A single construction accident can therefore potentially produce:
employee compensation proceedings + SGK recourse proceedings + administrative penalties + criminal proceedings.
19. Fatal Construction Accidents Can Create Criminal Liability
A fatal construction accident is not merely an occupational safety file.
It may become a criminal case.
Article 85 of the Turkish Criminal Code provides that a person who causes another person’s death through negligence may be sentenced to two to six years’ imprisonment, with more serious consequences where the negligent act causes multiple deaths or death together with injury to one or more persons.
Where the accident results in injury rather than death, Article 89 on negligent injury may become relevant depending on the circumstances.
Criminal liability is personal.
Therefore, prosecutors will attempt to identify which individuals had a legally relevant duty and whether their negligent conduct contributed to the accident.
Potential suspects may, depending entirely on the factual circumstances, include:
the employer or employer representative,
site manager,
project manager,
subcontractor manager,
technical supervisors,
occupational safety personnel,
equipment operators,
or other responsible individuals.
Their titles alone do not determine criminal liability.
The central issues are duty, negligence and causation.
20. Signing a Safety Document Does Not Automatically Eliminate Criminal Liability
Construction companies sometimes maintain extensive documentation:
risk assessments,
training forms,
PPE delivery forms,
inspection sheets,
and toolbox records.
Documentation is important.
But courts and investigators will also examine whether the safety system actually operated in practice.
Suppose the risk assessment states:
“Open edges must be protected with guardrails.”
Yet photographs taken immediately after the accident show that no guardrails existed.
The existence of the written risk assessment may not protect management.
It may instead demonstrate that the danger had already been identified.
Effective compliance therefore requires:
document + implementation + inspection + correction.
21. Contractor Agreements Cannot Eliminate Statutory Liability Toward Workers
Construction agreements frequently contain provisions stating:
“The subcontractor shall be solely responsible for all occupational health and safety measures.”
Such clauses may regulate risk allocation between the contracting companies.
They may also create contractual indemnification rights between the main contractor and subcontractor.
However, they do not necessarily eliminate statutory obligations owed directly to employees or public authorities.
The Ministry specifically emphasises that subcontractors remain responsible toward their own employees while principal employers must also integrate subcontractor risks into the overall safety organisation and ensure coordination.
Therefore, contractual responsibility and statutory responsibility must always be analysed separately.
22. Developers Should Not Ignore Occupational Safety Merely Because They Appointed a Main Contractor
A developer or project owner may attempt to place all construction responsibility on a general contractor.
Whether that fully separates the developer from occupational safety liability depends on the actual legal and operational structure.
Relevant questions may include:
Does the developer qualify as an employer or principal employer?
Does it directly employ personnel on site?
Does it control construction operations?
Does it issue operational instructions?
Has it appointed a project supervisor?
Who manages the common construction area?
Who coordinates different employers?
Who has authority to stop unsafe activities?
Under the Construction Works Regulation, specific responsibilities can also arise at project-owner and project-supervisor level, particularly regarding coordination, health and safety planning and organisation of the project.
Therefore, simply placing the phrase “all safety responsibility belongs to the contractor” in a development contract is not a complete legal risk-management strategy.
23. Occupational Safety Should Be Included in Construction Due Diligence
Before appointing a contractor, developers should investigate not only price and technical capability but also occupational safety performance.
A sophisticated pre-contract review may examine:
the contractor’s occupational safety organisation,
accident history,
qualified personnel,
subcontractor management structure,
safety procedures,
insurance arrangements,
equipment inspection systems,
training processes,
and internal audit mechanisms.
The construction agreement should also address:
safety reporting,
right of site inspection,
immediate correction of unsafe conditions,
suspension rights,
subcontractor compliance,
accident notification,
insurance,
indemnification,
and consequences of repeated occupational safety violations.
Occupational safety should therefore be treated as part of contractual risk allocation, not as an administrative matter left entirely to the site team.
24. Practical Example: Fatal Fall From a Construction Site
Consider the following scenario.
A worker employed by a façade subcontractor falls from the ninth floor of a construction project and dies.
The main contractor states:
“The deceased was an employee of the subcontractor.”
The subcontractor states:
“We gave him a safety harness.”
The project owner states:
“All occupational safety matters were contractually delegated to the main contractor.”
None of these statements necessarily resolves the legal case.
The investigation may ask:
Was edge protection installed?
Was a compliant scaffold available?
Was the worker trained for working at height?
Was the safety harness appropriate?
Was there a suitable anchorage?
Who inspected the work area?
Who identified the risk?
Did the occupational safety expert previously issue warnings?
Did management receive those warnings?
Who had authority to stop work?
Did the main contractor coordinate the subcontractor?
Was the health and safety plan followed?
Were site inspections actually performed?
The answers may result in different percentages of civil fault and different findings of individual criminal responsibility.
The accident may simultaneously generate:
an administrative investigation,
work stoppage,
SGK proceedings,
compensation litigation,
and a criminal prosecution for negligent homicide.
That example demonstrates why occupational safety responsibility in construction should never be analysed solely according to the employment contract of the injured worker.
Conclusion: Occupational Health and Safety Is a Core Construction-Law Risk
Occupational health and safety in Turkish construction projects is not simply the responsibility of the worker wearing a helmet or the safety expert conducting inspections.
It is a legal system of risk prevention, organisation, coordination, supervision and accountability.
Law No. 6331 imposes broad duties on employers, including risk assessment, safety organisation, training, monitoring and provision of appropriate resources. Construction projects are subject to additional obligations under the Construction Works Regulation, including health and safety planning, project coordination and construction-specific technical precautions.
The use of subcontractors does not eliminate occupational safety responsibilities. Subcontractors retain obligations toward their employees, while principal employers and project management must also address coordination and shared worksite risks.
Failure to comply can produce several independent legal consequences:
administrative monetary penalties under Law No. 6331,
work stoppage where life-threatening conditions exist,
civil compensation under employer-liability principles,
SGK recourse under Law No. 5510,
and
criminal liability under Articles 85 and 89 of the Turkish Criminal Code where negligent conduct causes death or injury.
The most important legal lesson for construction companies is therefore straightforward:
Occupational safety cannot simply be delegated—it must be managed.
A contractor that appoints an occupational safety expert but ignores warnings remains exposed.
A principal contractor that relies entirely on subcontractors remains exposed.
A developer that assumes all risk disappeared after signing a turnkey construction agreement may remain exposed depending on its actual role.
And a company that maintains perfect paperwork but operates an unsafe construction site remains exposed.
In Turkish construction law, the strongest defence after an accident is not a signed safety form.
It is evidence that the risks were identified, appropriate precautions were actually implemented, compliance was continuously supervised and unsafe work was stopped before someone was injured.
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