Is a safety committee or a worker safety representative required in Turkmenistan?

A labour protection committee is required once the employer, the workers or the trade union takes the initiative to set one up; the Labour Code of Turkmenistan sets no headcount threshold (Article 186). There is no separate statutory office of "safety representative": workers take part in OSH personally or through their representatives, and trade unions exercise control through their own technical labour inspections (Articles 173 and 406).

Short answer

• Committee: created at enterprises on the initiative of the employer, the workers or the trade union or other representative body (Article 186(1)).
• Membership: parity of employer representatives and representatives of the trade union or other worker body.
• Tasks: organise joint employer and worker action on labour protection and accident and disease prevention, inspect working conditions, inform workers of the results, collect proposals for the OSH section of the collective agreement (Article 186(2)).
• Model regulation: approved by Türkmenstandartlary (Article 186(1)).
• Threshold: none in the Code; compare Türkiye, where Law No. 6331 (Article 22) requires a committee at workplaces with 50 or more workers and continuous work lasting more than six months.
• Representatives: no separate office; trade unions create technical and legal labour inspections and have wide control rights (Article 406).
• Hazardous facilities: workers must take part in developing and implementing accident risk reduction measures within the safety management system (Industrial Safety Law Article 12(4)).

The labour protection committee

Article 186 is short but clear on the essentials. The committee is a joint body, not a management meeting: employer and worker sides have equal representation. Its practical work is organising joint measures, checking working conditions at workplaces, telling workers what the checks found, and preparing the labour protection part of the collective agreement, including the funding of OSH measures, which Article 199 links to the collective agreement.

Because the committee exists on initiative, a request from the trade union or from the workers is enough to trigger it. Refusing such a request would be hard to reconcile with Article 186, which says committees are created on any of these initiatives.

Trade unions as the worker voice in OSH

The Code gives trade unions most of the functions that EU law gives to safety representatives. Under Article 406 unions and other worker bodies may:

• control the employer's compliance with labour law, including OSH;
• carry out independent expertise of working conditions;
• take part in accident and occupational disease investigations and investigate independently;
• receive information on working conditions and on all registrable accidents;
• demand suspension of work in case of direct danger to life and health;
• issue orders to remove violations, which the employer must consider and answer within one week;
• check the OSH conditions of the collective agreement;
• take part as independent experts in commissions accepting new facilities and equipment;
• demand liability for officials who break OSH rules or conceal accidents.

Individual workers also have the right to take part personally or through representatives in OSH matters at their workplace and in the investigation of their own accident (Article 173(9)), and the union's opinion is taken into account when OSH instructions are approved (Article 178(20)). Union representatives also sit on the workplace attestation commission (Article 320).

Common mistakes

• Waiting for a headcount trigger. The Code has none; the initiative of any side is enough.
• Filling the committee with managers. Parity of employer and worker representatives is required.
• Ignoring union orders. The employer must report back to the union within one week.

Related on excodex

• Occupational safety and health in Turkmenistan: law, authorities and employer duties
• How and within what time must a workplace accident be reported in Turkmenistan?
• Is a written risk assessment mandatory in Turkmenistan?

Standards and further reading

• Labour Code of Turkmenistan, Law No. 29-IV of 18 April 2009, Articles 173, 178, 186, 199, 320, 406 (FAOLEX consolidated Russian translation): https://faolex.fao.org/docs/pdf/tuk243144.pdf
• Law No. 495-V on Industrial Safety of Hazardous Production Facilities, 4 February 2017, Article 12: https://faolex.fao.org/docs/pdf/tuk184581.pdf
• Turkish Law No. 6331 on Occupational Health and Safety (İş Sağlığı ve Güvenliği Kanunu), 20 June 2012, Article 22 on OSH committees, for comparison.

This article is general occupational safety and health information prepared by the excodex editorial team. It does not replace the applicable legislation, standards, manufacturers' instructions or the assessment of a competent OSH professional or occupational physician.