• No employee’s hours of work may be spread over more than 12 hours per day. (‘Spread over’ means from the start of work to the end of work, including any breaks for meals or rest and any overtime.)
• A rest period of 1 hour is required after every 5 hours worked. This can be reduced to 30 minutes, if the employee and employer agree in writing.
• Every employee is entitled to a daily rest period of 12 hours from the end of work on one day to the start of work on the following day. This rest period can be reduced to 10 hours if an employee lives on the premises and gets a meal break of at least 3 hours (this may be relevant to domestic workers, caretakers, farmworkers, and so on).
• Every employee is entitled to a weekly rest period of 36 continuous hours. For many employees, this is over the weekend.
• An agreement in writing between the employer and employee may reduce the meal interval to not less than 30 minutes or do away with a meal interval if the employee works less than 6 hours on a day.

The agreement can also provide for a rest period of at least 60 consecutive hours (hours in a row) every two weeks.

The BCEA makes no provision for tea intervals although it is common for the employer to grant two tea intervals per shift. These intervals are normally deemed to be ‘paid time.’