Hi, I just want guidance on daily work hours. It's 48 hours a week but is it including lunch break?
If it's 10-7 pm per day including lunch break, all Saturdays Should be off? Or if it's 10-6.30 pm per day including lunch break, 2 Saturdays should be off?
It's an advertising agency where working late is normal on most of the days. They don't consider it as overtime & pay accordingly.
What do you think?

From India, Pune
Dear Payal,

Under any establishment-specific law, the term 'working hours' comprises of two components. One is Spread Over i.e the entire continuous stretch of hours during which the employee is at the disposal of the employer meaning the hours of actual work and the intermittent intervals for rest and the other is actual working hours i.e the hours during which the employee is required to work without any intervening break. Therefore, 8 hours a day work or 48 hours a week means 8 hours of actual work plus rest intervals like lunch break etc. every day. But, the length of spread over shall not exceed the limit notified by the Government.

Every continuous stretch of six days shall be followed by the day of rest or weekly off is the general rule. It has nothing to do with the no of hours of work in a day. Depending on the type of the industry or nature of the work, the employer can decide whether the establishment should function in a system of 5 day week or six day week and the employees should work for 8 hours a day or less.

When the establishment has to function round the clock or more than the normal spread over hours, the employer has to arrange for shift working only subject to the restrictions on the opening and closing hours of the place of work, if any.

Irrespective of the type of the industrial establishment, if the employee is required to work more than the normal working hours whether it is 8 hours or less, he should be paid over time wages.

From India, Salem
sir, have a greetings of the day.

i am doing a job in markrting company in Gujarat. i have required your valuable help regarding bellow point.
1) working time is 9:00 to 18:00 with one hour lunch break from 13:00 to 14:00. and working days are six in a week. total working hours is 54.00 hours per week. am i eligible for overtime? please help sir....

From India, Buhari
Dear Gopal,

I think that you still need more explanation about the difference between " spread over " and " daily hours of work ".

Like I said earlier, spread over refers to the total no of hours an employee is kept at the disposal of the employer which includes the actual no of hours of daily work and the interval for rest. Spread over differs according to the relevant provision of the establishment-specific labor law. For example, the spread over under the Factories Act,1948 is 10 1/2 hours whereas under the most State Shops and Establishments Acts, it is 12 hours.

On the contrary, daily hours of work refers to the actual no of hours an employee shall be required to work which is normally 8 hours excluding over time work. The weekly hours of work, therefore, becomes 48 hours only.

In your case, the spread over is is 9 hours a day [ 9-00 hours to 18-00 hours ] and excluding the one hour lunch break, your actual daily hours is only 8 hors a day. If you are asked to work beyond the 18th hour, that alone would be treated as over time. But the important point is that the total no of
actual working hours shall not exceed 54 hours in total. This would imply that an employee cannot be required to work more than one hour O.T on all the six working days.

However, if the contract of employment or the service regulations has fixed daily hours of work less than 8 hours, the extra hours, if any required to work beyond the normal working hours thus already fixed, would entitle the employee to O.T wages for such work.

From India, Salem
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