April 2018 News Flash – Employment Law

Amendment to the Hours of Work and Rest Law regarding Night Work

Night work is defined as work when at least two hours are between the hours of 22:00 and 06:00 on the following morning.

Pursuant to section 22 of the Hours of Work and Rest Law, 5711 – 1951, workplaces that operate shiftwork were allowed to assign not more than one week of night work to their employees every three weeks (in other words, an employee could not be required to work more than 7 night shifts every 21 days).

The amendment to the law takes effect on March 13, 2018, and allows a higher frequency of night work, so that now an employee can be assigned one week of night work every two weeks, so that it will be permitted to assign 7 night shifts to an employee every 14 days.

A special permit must be obtained from the Ministry of Labor in order to deviate from the provisions of section 22.

Amendment to the General Permit to Engage Employees in Overtime Work

Employees are being assigned overtime work by virtue of general permits issued in this regard.

On March 19, 2018 a new general permit was promulgated regarding overtime work, which replaces and supersedes the previous permits.

The new permit prescribes the following provisions:

Permitted overtime hours per day: employees may not be required to work more than 12 hours per day (including overtime hours);

Permitted overtime hours per week: employees may not be assigned more than 16 hours of overtime per week – regardless of whether these employees are working a five-day work week or a six-day work week. Considering that the work week has been shortened to 42 hours, this means that employers may not require their employees to work more than 58 hours per week, including overtime hours;

Permitted overtime hours per week for night-work employees: the permit prescribes that the work week for night-work employees must not exceed 58 hours, including overtime. In this regard, we note that, since a night shift is only seven hours of work, the number of permitted overtime hours under night work is higher than for day shifts. For example, if an employee works five night shifts per week, then his work week is 35 regular hours and it will be possible to assign him 23 hours of overtime during the same week.