Sonja Vorster
Working time including overtime is regulated by the Basic Conditions of Employment (BCE) Act in Chapter 2. The Chapter of the Act is, however not applicable to the following employees:
Senior managerial employees earning above the *Employment threshold of R205 433.30 per year or, R17,119.44 per month; sales staff who travel to the premises of customers and who regulate their own hours of work and employees who work less than 24 hours a month for an employer.
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As per section 9 of the BCE Act, the maximum normal working time for an employee below the threshold* is 45 hours per week.
This would mean a maximum of nine hours in any day if the employee works for five days or fewer in a week and eight hours in any day if the employee works on more than five days in a week.
Overtime worked as per the BCE Act is all hours worked in excess of the employee’s normal daily or weekly hours of work will be regarded as overtime hours. Therefore if an employee is contracted to work 45 hours per week normal time, then any hours in excess of that is overtime.
Similarly if an employee is contracted to work 40 hours per week normal time, then any hours in excess of the 40 hours is overtime. Lunch and tea breaks are not included in the calculation of working hours and will therefore be unpaid. As meal breaks are unpaid the employee can, for instance read a book or go and do some shopping. An employee must be remunerated for a meal break that the employee was required to work or to be available for work.
The maximum permissible overtime as per section 10 of the BCE Act is 10 hours in any one week.
As per the definitions of the Act, a week means the period of seven days within which the working week of that employee ordinarily falls and a day – a period of 24 hours measured from the time when the employee normally commences work.
Employees earning below the threshold must be paid 1.5 times the normal wage rate for overtime worked except for Sundays. Overtime on a Sunday must be remunerated at double the normal wage rate. By agreement, the employer may allow an employee paid time off for overtime worked instead of paying the employee.
The employee will then be entitled to 90 minutes paid time off for every 60 minutes overtime worked. The referred paid time off must be granted to the employee within one month after working the overtime, but by agreement this period may be extended to 12 months.
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An employee that works on a Sunday must be remunerated at double his normal wage rate for each hour worked, unless he ordinarily works on a Sunday, in which case he must be remunerated at 1, 5 times his normal wage rate for each hour worked. Work on a public holiday is by agreement only and an employee must be paid double his normal daily rate for work on a public holiday if the employee would’ve ordinarily worked on that public holiday.
Should an employee be expected to work on a public holiday on which he/she would not normally work on, then the employee must be paid at least his normal daily wage plus the normal wage rate for the hours worked.
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