Labour Ministry to clear the air on work hours | Economic Times

NEW DELHI: The government will soon specify the cut-off for daily work hours, likely limiting this to eight, after which overtime starts, said people with knowledge of the matter. This is aimed at ending the misconception that the new labour laws allow a 12-hour workday, they said. The overtime wage rate is twice that of regular daily pay.After the Wistron episode, policymakers are keen that working hours be clarified explicitly to avoid ambiguity under the new labour codes that are likely to go into effect on April 1, a senior government official told ET. Violence broke out at the Apple contract maker’s Karnataka plant earlier this month after wages and overtime payments to workers were said to have been delayed.The labour ministry has proposed an eight-hour workday in the draft rules under the code on Occupational Safety, Health and Working Conditions (OSH&WC code). However, the draft rules under the code, also provide that the working hours in a day can be modified subject to weekly cap of 48 hours.Besides this, the code has also allowed a working day ‘spreadover’ of 12 hours as against the current practice of nine hours of work or 10 ½ hours of spreadover under the Factories Act to facilitate shift changes and breaks. That has created the impression the regular workday can stretch to 12 hours, subject to the cap of 48 hours a week.Companies are of the view that with weekly hours capped at 48, they can allow employees to work for four days a week and extend the weekend to three days. That’s incorrect, said the people cited above. “This is not the intent of the current proposal,” one said. “The idea was to allow companies the flexibility to get the orders in hand finished on time in case of tight deadlines and not make it a norm.”The first official cited said, “We are seeing how we can clarify the overtime and work hours in the final rules.” The rules under the code are likely to be finalised by next month.80002104While the draft rules don’t explicitly state the hours after which overtime starts, they provide details in other areas. Currently, anything less than 30 minutes is not counted as overtime. Under the draft rules, any period between 15 and 30 minutes will be counted as 30 minutes of overtime.“There is no clarity in the current draft rules on the components of eight hours of work in a day. It is important that the components as well as when the overtime kicks in are clearly explained to avoid any labour litigations in this regard in future,” said labour expert and professor at XLRI, KR Shyamsundar.Vrijesh Upadhyay, former general secretary of the Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh, said the provision of ‘spreadover’ is misleading. “Government should clearly spell out overtime and the wage rates beyond eight hours to be paid during the overtime worked by the workers,” he said.Under the current Factories Act 1948, an adult — 18 and above — cannot work for more than 48 hours in a week and not more than nine hours in a day. Section 51 of the Act stipulates that the spreadover time should not exceed 10 ½ hours.