The right to work is a social right and is among the basic principles of the welfare state. Every citizen should be able to work in order to survive, and his work should not be prevented by pressure. At the same time, the state must provide the necessary conditions for the right to work and for citizens to benefit.
Whatever the right to work is not to have a job. This exposes slavery and inhuman forms of work. The right to work is complemented by the working environment and conditions. The working environment and conditions should include decent conditions. The right to work becomes meaningful only when these conditions are met. Conditions such as job security, worker health and safety, the right to leave, registered work, and social security are indispensable.
According to Article 49 of the Constitution, “Work is everyone’s right and duty. The state takes the necessary measures to raise the standard of living of the employees, to protect the employees, to support the work and to create an economic environment conducive to the prevention of unemployment in order to improve the working life.
Universal Declaration of Human Rights
Article 23
1. Everyone has the right to work, to free choice of employment, to just and favorable conditions of work and to protection from unemployment.
2. Everyone has the right, without distinction of any kind, to equal pay for equal work.
3. Everyone who works has the right to just and favorable remuneration ensuring for himself and his family an existence worthy of human dignity and, if necessary, supplemented by any means of social protection.
4. Everyone has the right to form and join trade unions for the protection of their interests.
Article 24
Everyone has the right to rest, to recreation, in particular to reasonable limitation of working time and paid holidays in certain periods.
The right to work is defined in the European Social Charter as follows.
“1- To consider reaching as high and stable employment level as possible and maintaining this level as one of its primary goals and responsibilities in order to realize full employment;
2- To effectively protect the rights of workers to make a living with freely acquired employment;
3- Establishing or maintaining employment services for all employees;
4- It undertakes to provide or encourage appropriate career orientation, education and rehabilitation services”. (Chap.II, Article 1)