Abstract
After the industrial revolution, serious concerns have emerged about the health and safety of workers in the countries that constitute the dominant power of today's European Union. These concerns revealed that measures should be taken regarding the Occupational Health and Safety (OHS) of the employees. These early practices and developments in the legal literature have made the EU an example and a useful resource all over the world, with its laws and practices, on the OHS factors of employees. The study was carried out using the literature review technique, using the laws, regulations, official and private institution statistical studies and article studies in the EU and Turkey. OHS law and its practices, which is one of the files opened within the framework of the EU accession process in Turkey, have been comprehensively addressed for 10 years. Although progress has been made, it has fallen far behind the targets. The OHS factors of disadvantaged employee groups have not been sufficiently emphasized. There are differences and deficiencies in terms of acceptance and concepts. However, the implementation of existing laws and regulations in the field and their monitoring mechanisms are quite inadequate. OHS problems of disadvantaged groups, as well as the practices of legislators and practitioners on all employees, are not adequately addressed and are not focused on with interest. In this study, the OHS practices of the disadvantaged employee groups were compared with the EU laws and norms and the practices in Turkey, the deficiencies at the point we reached were determined, the occupational risks, health outcomes and policy context of each of the seven disadvantaged employee groups were analyzed and solution suggestions were presented.