The Basic Conditions of Employment Act (BCEA) provides a basic guideline on BCEA regulations relating to:
- Working times: including shift work, weekend work, public holidays, overtime
- Payment: including payment in kind, deductions
- Leave: annual leave, sick leave, maternity leave, family responsibility leave, unpaid leave and absence without leave
- Deductions: including those required by law and those you are allowed to make
- Notice periods
- Administration: documents needed by employees and record-keeping
- Prohibition of victimisation and exploitation
This article will focus on: Working times and pay
- The maximum hours of work are 45 hours per week for ordinary pay.
- The maximum length of a working day is 9 hours if the worker works a 5-day week, 8 hours a day if the worker works a 6-day week. Where the working week is compressed (squashed) into fewer days, 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.
- Overtime is voluntary. No worker 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 worker’s ordinary hourly wage. In addition, no employee may work more than 12 hours 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 this 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 joint refusal by a number of employees to work normal overtime, will probably constitute a strike or industrial action.
Payment for Sunday work
This must be the greater of double the normal hourly rate for the amount of Sunday hours worked or one full day’s pay. If it is normally part of a worker’s 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.
What about public holidays?
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. A worker can agree to work on a public holiday, but this is voluntary. If a worker does agree to work, they must get a normal working day off in exchange or they must be paid double the normal hourly rate for the amount of hours worked on the day.
The public holidays in South Africa are:
1 January New Year’s Day
21 March Human Rights Day
Good Friday and Family Day (dates change)
27 April Freedom Day
1 May Workers’ Day
16 June Youth Day
9 August National Women’s Day
24 September Heritage Day
16 December Day of Reconciliation
25 December Christmas Day
26 December Day of Goodwill
Night work
Work after 6 pm and before 6 am is voluntary. Workers must be paid an extra 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.
Flexibility in working hours
The BCEA allows for some flexibility in the arrangement of working hours, by agreement between the employer and workers (collective agreement) or one worker (individual agreement):
- Compressed working week by collective or individual agreement:
Employees can work up to 12 hours of normal work on any day without receiving overtime pay. But the employees may still not work more than 45 normal hours per week and may not work on more than 5 days in a week. Any time worked beyond 45 hours in the week should be paid at overtime rates. - Averaging of working hours by collective agreement only:
Averaging means workers can agree to work longer hours than the BCEA usually allows, if they get the same number of extra hours off at a later time. For example mean that workers could agree to work longer hours in one week for normal pay, if they work reduced hours for normal pay the following week.
The workers may still not work more than an average of 45 ordinary hours per week during this period. Also the agreement cannot go on for longer than 4 months. Where reference is made to a collective agreement, then this an agreement should be made through the employees’ trade union.
Other articles about the BCEA can be found here:
You can contact us for a more comprehensive summary in one document.
The complete BCEA can be viewed at www.gov.za