When occupational health and safety is mentioned, only the Occupational Health and Safety Law No. 6331 comes to mind. However, for some professions, the situation is not limited to compliance with occupational health and safety legislation. As a matter of fact, it is important for the health and safety of the workers working on the sets. As the most important indicator of this situation, movie and TV series sets were classified from "less dangerous" to "dangerous" with the Communiqué Amending the Communiqué on Occupational Health and Safety on Workplace Hazard Classes published in the Official Gazette dated February 19, 2015, and numbered 29272.
For example, in a movie, only actors can be seen on the side of the road, on a skyscraper, on the slope of a mountain. However, it is almost impossible to present the film to the audience without the team, and it will be impossible to complete the process in a healthy way. So, what can be done about the safety of the cameraman, the lighting and sound team who shoot in the specified and potentially dangerous places? How can the player feel more secure? What are the possible dangers for the kit and the flu team? How can the safety of the set and the team be ensured in general? It will naturally be difficult for a non-professional person to answer all these questions, but it will be an invaluable resource to offer solutions to these questions by the workers of the profession and those who have personally overcome these risks.
Happily, the Cinema-Television Union, the Actors' Union of Turkey, and the Cinema Workers' Union, which are among the workers of the media industry who have experienced all of these risks on sets and learned lessons from them, have published the Occupational Health and Safety Guide on Sets ("Guide"). As emphasized in the Guide, "sets are indeed workplaces fraught with hidden dangers".
Within the scope of the guide, guidance was given on how to minimize the risks that may arise in the production process, which should be followed by everyone on the sets. In addition to the set order, different risk scenarios were discussed and solution suggestions were presented.
In addition to these, the risks within the teams themselves are also mentioned. Since the job descriptions of each team are different, different risks have been taken into account. In different sections, there are explanations regarding occupational health and safety measures for different teams in the form of danger, factors that facilitate the emergence of danger, precautions to be taken and questions to be asked.
Afterward, there is the "Common Risks" section, which explains how the employer and teammates can mitigate the risk, together with the concretization of the common risks of the teams. Afterward, legal responsibility in terms of occupational health and safety and the rights of workers are mentioned, and then recommendations are given on how to follow in case of a work accident.
Risk management and taking the necessary precautions may seem easy, but it is almost impossible for a lawyer who has not worked in front of or behind the camera on the sets to determine a rule or comment on the working conditions of the teams working on the sets of movies or TV series. Therefore, the Guide is a valuable resource for lawyers as well as workers.
On the other hand, one of the most striking issues in the Guide is the emphasis on the importance of working under stress and psychological health, which is discussed in developed economies. Thus, it showed that the risk that may arise exists not only physically but also psychologically and that a worker's life does not only consist of work.
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