• The maximum hours of work is 45 hours per week for ordinary pay. (See s9 of the BCEA)
• The maximum length of a working day is 9 hours if the employee works a 5-day week, but 8 hours a day if the employee works a 6-day week. Where the working week is compressed (squashed) into fewer days, then shifts of longer hours may be introduced with the employee’s consent. For example, an employee can agree to work shifts of 12 hours over 4 working days, where overtime is only paid once more than 45 hours have been worked.
• Overtime is voluntary. No employee may work more than 10 hours of overtime per week. Overtime must be paid per hour of overtime worked, at a rate of one and a half times the employee’s ordinary hourly wage. In addition, no employee may work more than 3 hours overtime in any day (including overtime on that day).
  
  Even though overtime is voluntary, if the employee agreed in the original contract to work over time when necessary, then reasonable overtime must be worked. If the employee refuses to work overtime then he/she is in breach of the contract and the employer can take disciplinary action against the employee.
  
  An employer who is employing less than 10 employees only needs to pay overtime at time and a third of the normal wage. The employer can also agree with the employee to work up to 15 hours overtime during a week as against the normal ten hours.
  
  Note:
  While individual overtime is voluntary (subject to an agreement), a collective or joint refusal by a number of employees to work normal overtime will probably constitute a strike or industrial action.

• Payment for Sunday work must be the greater of:
  • either, double the normal hourly rate for the amount of Sunday hours worked, OR
  • one full day’s pay, even if the employee only worked three hours that Sunday.
    
    If it is normally part of an employee’s normal shift and job to work on a Sunday, then s/he must be paid at a rate of time and a half his/her normal hourly rate.

• Workers are entitled to be paid for public holidays which fall on a day that they normally would have worked – even though they will be off and not working on the public holiday. This includes employees who may be on strike.
• An employee can agree to work on a public holiday, but this is voluntary. If an employee does agree to work on a public holiday, he must get two ordinary working days off in exchange or he must be paid double the normal hourly rate for the amount of hours worked on the public holiday. Where a public holiday falls on a Sunday, the following Monday, is regarded as a public holiday.
• Night work after 6 p.m. and before 6 a.m. is voluntary. Workers must be paid an extra ‘night work allowance’ or have their working hours reduced. Transport must be available for the workers to get from their homes to work and back. The law is unclear as to who must ‘provide or pay’ for such transport but at least, there must be transport available so that the employee can get home at late or early hours.

The public holidays are: