Proposal to regulate working hours in disaster prevention

The Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development is drafting a Circular regulating working hours and rest hours for employees doing special jobs in the field of natural disaster prevention.

According to the draft, special work in the field of natural disaster prevention is directing, commanding, advising on direction and commanding to carry out tasks to protect human life and property in preventing, responding to and overcoming the consequences of natural disasters on a 24/7 basis.

Regarding normal working hours, for regular disaster prevention work at the Office, normal working hours do not exceed 12 hours per day. For disaster prevention work at the scene, normal working hours do not exceed 8 hours per day.

Based on the actual situation and human resources of the agency or unit, the employer is responsible for promulgating the Standing Regulations at the Office, which specifically stipulate the time, number, composition and standing tasks for employees and notify employees before coming to work.

Regarding overtime in normal cases, according to the draft, working time outside of the above-mentioned time is considered overtime. The total number of overtime hours of employees shall not exceed 4 hours in 1 day. The number of overtime hours of employees in a year shall not exceed 300 hours in 1 year.

Regarding overtime in special cases, according to the draft, special cases in natural disaster prevention are the mobilization of human resources to perform regular tasks in natural disaster prevention and search and rescue to protect human life and property of the state and people. Employers have the right to request employees to work overtime at any time and employees cannot refuse in special cases. The number of overtime hours in special cases is not counted in the limit of overtime hours per day and per year.

Employers and persons with authority to mobilize workers must pay wages and other overtime benefits to workers in accordance with current laws.

Rest time

According to the draft, employees who work continuously for 12 hours or 8 hours are entitled to a break of at least 60 minutes, which is counted as working hours. During the break, employees are not allowed to leave their regular place.

Employees performing regular duties of natural disaster prevention at the Office and natural disaster prevention at the scene are entitled to take leave and receive full pay as follows: For regular duties at the Office, after each day of duty, they are given 1 day off in lieu on the next day; for natural disaster prevention duties at the scene, they are given a number of days off in lieu equal to the number of days performing natural disaster prevention duties at the scene.

In case the agency or unit using labor does not arrange enough compensatory time off for employees due to work requirements, it must pay overtime wages according to the provisions of the current Labor Code. The amount of time not arranged for compensatory time off and paid overtime wages for employees in this case is not counted in the total number of overtime hours in the year.

According to Chinhphu.vn