/ 40-hour law: Labor Directorate clarifies formula that the employer must use to adapt the work day

By Opinion 135/08, of April 18, 2024, the Labor Directorate clarified the specific formula that the employer must use to adjust the daily work day in order to obtain its weekly reduction, in the event of no agreement with the workers or union organizations, in the following terms:

In the event that there is no agreement to adjust the daily work schedule, the employer must:

1. In the event that the working day is distributed over five days, it will decrease by one hour each day, considering the progressivity established in the Law.
   As an example, in the case of a day from Monday to Friday, on April 26, 2024, the employer must reduce at least one hour at the end of the daily work day in one of the 5 days that are part of the weekly work day.
2. In the event that the working day is distributed over six days, it will decrease by at least 50 minutes each day, considering the progressivity established in the Law.
   As an example, in the case of a day from Monday to Saturday, the employer must reduce at the end of at least 50 minutes on one day of the weekly workday and the fraction of 10 minutes on another of the same week.

Its previous doctrine contained in Opinion 81/02 of February 1, 2024 is void, according to which in the absence of agreement, the employer had to adjust the working day by reducing its period, proportionally between the different work days. , considering for this the weekly distribution of the day, that is, if it was distributed over six days, ten minutes per day should be reduced, and if it was distributed over five days, it should be reduced by 12 minutes per day.