To avoid running into serious legal liability, an employer needs to thoroughly
understand how overtime operates in Puerto
Rico. Let´s examine how extra hours occur during a regular
workday. Unlike most jurisdictions in the United
States, overtime can be accrued many more
ways than working over forty hours a week.
Actually, when
companies in the U.S think about overtime they only talk about the maximum
number of hours an employee can work in a week without incurring in overtime.
In Puerto Rico however overtime
includes:
- Work in excess of forty 40 hours during any week;
- Working over 8 hours in any 24 hour period;
- The hours that an employee works for his employer during the day of rest;
- Not taking the mandatory meal period within the allotted time frame;
- Hours that an employee works for his employer during the days or hours when the establishment in which he-she renders services should remain closed to the pubic by legal provision.
Daily Overtime
An individual can incur in daily overtime by working more than 8
consecutive hours or by working more than 8 hours during any period of 24
consecutive hours.
To determine whether a particular hour is considered overtime, we must
look back 24 hours. Visualize that each hour worked is the last hour of the 24
hour period that ends on such hour. If the hours exceed 8 within the
previous 24 hour period, it is considered overtime.
So for example if an employee works from 9 am to 6 pm on Monday (with an hour of
lunch) and on Tuesday the individual works from 8
am to 5 pm, there is one
hour of overtime for the 24 hour period that ended at 8 am. By beginning work an hour earlier 9 hours of
work were incurred within the 24 hour cycle that ended at 8 am; regardless of whether the hours were worked on two
separate days- 8 hours on Monday and 1 hour on Tuesday (8-9 am). Another way overtime can occur is if
the meal period is delayed with respect to the previous day. For example an
individual enjoys a meal period from 11 a.m. to 12 noon one day and from 12 noon to 1 p.m.
the next.
The reason behind this cumbersome way of
calculating overtime is to avoid late shifts one day and early shifts the next-
denying appropriate rest to the worker. Do not laugh at this notion.
If you were the worker you would find this a neat feature in your employment
package.
Every employer who allows an employee to
work during extra hours shall be obligated to pay him-her for each extra
hour a wage rate equal to the rate agreed upon for regular hours,
provided , however that every employer covered by the Fair Labor
Standards Act shall pay only time and a half.
