Hours of Work, Rest Hours, Holidays and the Annual Vacation

Abstract

Hours of work means the actual working time excluding rest hours and summing up, regardless of a change of work place. There are no legal provisions about how working time should in fact be calculated; so does it start when the employees enter the gate and continue until they leave, or does it start only when they make themselves ready to begin work and end when they finish working? The Labour Standards Law only stipulates that for underground work the hours of work include the whole period from pit-head to pit-head, including recesses. Thus, for ordinary work this will be a matter to be decided by agreement or in the work rules. In the absence of any stipulation or established practice, the Courts have laid down that it should be calculated from gate to gate. However, even if, for example, it is laid down in the work rules that working time starts from the time when the employees get ready to begin work and ends when they actually finish work, the question is still likely to arise as to whether the time needed to get ready for work and to finish work — changing clothes, washing and so on — should be included in the working time or not. As for those employees who work outside the premises and take their work home without coming back, and those who are on business trips, it is presumed that they are keeping normal working hours unless they are ordered to do otherwise or have proof of having worked extra hours.