Payment for Weekly Off, Compensatory Off to Night Shift, other employees: What government wants

Code on Wages (Central) Rules, 2019: The Union Ministry of Labour and Employment has put Preliminary draft of the Wages (Central) Rules under Section 67 of the Code on Wages, 2019 in the public domain for inputs from stakeholders and general public. These rules, when implemented, will be called as “Code on Wages (Central) Rules, 2019”. The Code On Wages, 2019 received Presidential assent on August 8 this year. Section 67 of the Code on Wages 2019 allows the government to make rules for carrying out provisions of the Code. These rules can provide for methods to calculation of wages and other issues of concerns for workers.

The draft “Code on Wages (Central) Rules, 2019” explains the conditions for weekly day of rest to the night shift and other workers. Take a look:

Weekly off/Rest Day for Night shift workers

The draft “Code on Wages (Central) Rules, 2019” says workers engaged in night shift should get full 24 hours week-off. The counting for that period will start from the end of the shift.

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A worker will be considered to be working in the night shift if his duty time extends beyond midnight. On week-off for night shift workers, the draft rules say:

a) a holiday for the whole day for the purposes of rule 7 shall, in this case means a period of twenty-four consecutive hours beginning from the time when his shift ends; and

(b) the following day in such a case shall be deemed to be the period of twenty-four hours beginning from the time when such shift ends, and the hours after midnight during which such employee was engaged in work shall be counted towards the previous day.

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Weekly day of rest to workers

Rule 7 of the draft explains conditions for providing weekly day rest to workers. It says that all employee shall be allowed a day of rest every week. The day shall “ordinarily” be Sunday. However, the employer may fix any other days of the week as the rest day for any employee or class of employee.

An employee will be entitled for the rest day if he/she has worked under the same employer for a continuous period of six days. The day fixed for rest should be informed to the employee in advance.

On rest day, the employee should not be required or allowed to work, unless he/she will be allowed a substituted rest day for a whole day on one of the five days immediately before or after the rest day.

“Any such employee shall not be required or allowed to work on the rest day unless he has or will have a substituted rest day for a whole day on one of the five days immediately before or after the rest day.”

Such substitution, or what we generally call as comp-off, should be made in such a way that it would not result in the employee working for 10 days consecutively without a rest for a whole day.

The draft rules say that the employee shall be granted wages for the rest day and it shall be calculated at the rate applicable to the next preceding date. If an employee has worked on the rest day and has been given a substituted rest day, “he shall be paid wages for the rest day on which he worked, at the overtime rate and wages for the substitutes rest day applicable to the next preceding day.”