Overtime is one more concept of all the vocabulary related to work and that, therefore, is part of our working life. The image we have of them is of a possibility of expanding (with more workload, of course) our salary on a voluntary basis, but there are cases in which this can happen on a mandatory basis.
The labor guide of the Ministry of Labor refers to a very specific case in which workers do have to do these overtime hours even if they do not want to: “Those that are required by the need to prevent or repair accidents or other extraordinary and urgent damages , such as the risk of loss of raw materials. “
The truth is that this possibility is contemplated in the Workers’ Statute. In its article 35.3 , it recognizes this possibility and explains that, if it occurs, these overtime hours do not count for the “maximum duration of the ordinary working day, nor for the calculation of the maximum number of authorized overtime hours”.
The regulation of overtime establishes that a total of 80 hours may be made per year (in cases of less than full working hours it is reduced proportionally), but this type of overtime, therefore, would be outside this global calculation.
Apart from this exceptional case, the law also includes two possibilities in which overtime is not voluntary: when it is signed through an employment contract or a collective agreement . It is not the same type of obligation, but in practice they represent a workload added to the usual working day with which the worker has to comply.
How will those overtime be paid?
In any case, these compulsory overtime will be compensated like the rest of the voluntary overtime . The Workers’ Statute explains that either by collective agreement or by contract, a choice must be made between compensating them with an amount never less than the ordinary time or with a rest period that must be enjoyed during the four months after its completion.
However, and that is the case of overtime due to emergency reasons, in cases where there is no agreement, the worker must be compensated with a rest period, never with money, to be enjoyed in that period previously stated. four months.
