ART. 83.
NORMAL HOURS OF WORK
The normal hours of work of any employee shall not
exceed eight (8) hours a day.
Part-Time Work
What the law regulates is work hours exceeding eight. It
prescribes a maximum but not a minimum.
In any case, the fair and general rule is that the wage and
the benefits of a part-timer are in proportion to the
number of hours worked.
Proportionate wage for part-time work is recognized in
the eighth paragraph of Article 124, as amended by R.A.
No. 6727.
Work Hours of Health Personnel
Shall include, but not be limited to:
1. Resident Physicians
2. Nurses
3. Nutritionists
4. Dieticians
5. Pharmacists
6. Social Workers
7. Laboratory Technicians
8. Paramedical Technicians
9. Psychologists
10. Midwives Attendants
11. And All Other Hospital or Clinic Personnel
NOTE: Medical secretaries are also considered clinic
personnel.
TWELVE-HOUR WORKSHIFT WITH OVERTIME
A 12-hour workshift is validated by consent and
its four-hour overtime work with overtime pay becomes
a CONTRACTUAL COMMITMENT. Boycott of the
established four-hour overtime is declared by the Court
as an illegal strike.
ART. 84. HOURS WORKED
x x x …. shall include:
(a) all time during which an employee is required
to be on duty or to be at a prescribed workplace;
and
(b) all time during which an employee is suffered
or permitted to work.
NOTE: Rest periods of short duration during working
hours shall be counted as hours worked.
TIMES CONSIDERED COMPENSABLE
1. Preliminary Activities
- Preliminary (before work) activities and
postliminary (after actual work) activities are
deemed performed during working hours,
where such activities are controlled or
required by the employer and are pursued
necessarily and primarily for the employer’s
benefit.
2. Waiting Time
- Waiting time spent by an employee shall be
considered as working time if waiting is
considered an integral part of his work or if
the employee is required or engaged by an
employer to wait.
3. Working While Eating
- The meal time is NOT COMPENSABLE if he is
completely freed from duties during his meal
period even though he remains in the
workplace. But the employee is not relieved
if he is required to perform his duties,
whether active or inactive, while eating. For
example, an office employee who is required
to eat at his desk or a factory worker who is
required to be at his machine is working
while eating.
4. Working While Sleeping
- The rule is that sleeping time may be
considered working time if it is subject to
serious interruption or takes place under
conditions substantially less desirable than
would be likely to exist at the employee’s
home.
5. “On Call”
- An employee who is required to remain on
call on the employer’s premises or so close
thereto that he cannot use the time
effectively for his own purposes is working
while “on call.” An employee who is not
required to remain on the employer’s
premises but is merely required to leave
words at his home or with company officials
where he may be reached is NOT WORKING
WHILE ON CALL.
6. Travel Time
- When an employee receives an emergency
call outside of his regular working hours and
is required to travel to his regular place of
business or some other work site, all of the
time spent in such travel is working time.
(Travel from home to work)
- Time spent by an employee in travel as part
of his principal activity, such as travel from
jobsite to jobsite during the workday, must
be counted as hours worked.
(Travel that is all in the day’s work)
- Travel that keeps an employee away from
home overnight is travel away from home.
Travel away from home is clearly worktime
when it cuts across the employee’s workday.
(Travel away from home)
7. Lectures, Meetings, and Training Programs
EXCEPT IF:
1. Attendance is outside of the employee’s regular
working hours;
 2. Attendance is in fact voluntary; and
3. The employee does not perform any productive
work during such attendance.
8. Grievance Meeting
- Time spent in adjusting grievance between
employer and employees during the time the
employees are required by the employer to be
on the premises is hours worked. But in the
event a bona fide union is involved, the
counting of such time will, as a matter of
enforcement policy, be left to the process of
collective bargaining or to the custom or
practice under the collective bargaining
agreement.
9. Semestral Break
- Regular full-time monthly paid teachers in a
private school are entitled to salary and
emergency cost-of- living allowance (ECOLA)
during semestral breaks.
OVERTIME PAY
Overtime compensation is additional pay for service or
work rendered or performed in excess of eight hours a
day by employees or laborers in employment covered by
the Eight-hour Labor Law and not exempt from its
requirements.
NIGHT DIFFERENTIAL AND OVERTIME PAY
When the tour of duty of a laborer falls at nighttime
[between 10:00 PM and 6:00 AM], the receipt of
overtime pay will not preclude the right to night
differential pay. The latter is payment for work done
during the night while the other is payment for the
excess of the regular eight-hour work.
EMPLOYER-EMPLOYEE RELATIONSHIP
Employer-employee relationship is contractual and is
based on the express terms of the employment contract
as well as on its implied terms, among them, those not
expressly agreed upon but which the employer has
freely, voluntarily and consistently extended to its
employees.
In determining if there is an existence of the (ER-EE)
relationship, the FOUR-FOLD TEST was used by the
Supreme Court. These are:
a. The selection and engagement of the employee
b. Payment of wages
c. Power of dismissal
d. Control Test- the employer’s power to control
the employee with respect to the means and
methods by which work is to be accomplished
ART. 127. NON-DIMINUTION OF BENEFITS
No Wage Order issued by any regional board shall
provide for wage rates lower than the statutory
minimum wage rates prescribed by Congress.
WAGE DISTORTION
Wage distortion means “a situation where an
increase in prescribed wage rates results in the
elimination or severe contraction of intentional
quantitative differences in wage or salary rates between
and among employee groups in an establishment as to
effectively obliterate the distinctions embodied in such
wage structure based on skills, length of service, or other
logical bases of differentiation.” In short, wage distortion
is the effect of increasing the pay of an employee to such
an amount that equals, almost equals, or overtakes
another employee’s pay which has not been similarly
increased.
HOLIDAYS WITH PAY
The term “holiday” shall exclusively refer to:
1. New Year’s Day
2. Maundy Thursday
3. Good Friday
4. the ninth of April
5. the first of May
6. the twelfth of June
7. the fourth of July
8. the thirtieth of November
9. the twenty-fifth and thirtieth of December; and
10. the day designated by law for a general election
or national referendum or plebiscite.
Shall apply to all employees EXCEPT:
(a) Those of the government and any of the political
subdivisions, including government-owned and -
controlled corporation;
(b) Those of retail and service establishments
regularly employing less than ten (10) workers;
(c) Domestic helpers and persons in the personal
service of another;
(d) Managerial employees as defined in Book III of
the Code;
(e) Field personnel and other employees whose time
and performance is unsupervised by the employer
including those who are engaged on task or contract
basis, purely commission basis, or those who are
paid a fixed amount for performing work irrespective
of the time consumed in the performance thereof.
 SUCCESSIVE REGULAR HOLIDAYS
Where there are two (2) successive regular
holidays, like Holy Thursday and Good Friday, an
employee may not be paid for both holidays if he absents
himself from work on the day immediately preceding the
first holiday, unless he works on the first holiday, in
which case he is entitled to his holiday pay on the second
holiday.
EMPLOYMENT OF WOMEN AND MINORS
MATERNITY LEAVE BENEFITS
Every employer shall grant to any of his pregnant women
employees who has rendered an aggregate service of at
least six (6) months for the last twelve (12) months
immediately preceding the expected date of delivery, or
the complete abortion or miscarriage, maternity leave of
at least two (2) weeks before and four (4) weeks after the
delivery, miscarriage or abortion, with full pay based on
her regular or average weekly wages.
PATERNITY LEAVE
Paternity leave is seven days with full pay to all married
male employees in the private and public sectors.
Paternity leave is available only for the first four
deliveries of the legitimate spouse with whom the
husband is living. “Delivery” includes childbirth,
miscarriage or abortion. The purpose of paternity leave
is to enable the husband to lend support to his wife
during the period of recovery and/or in the nursing of the
newly born child.
BATTERED WOMAN LEAVE
Allows the victim of violence, which may be physical,
sexual or psychological, to apply for the issuance of a
“protection order.” This will shield her from further
violence and provide her related reliefs. Additionally, if
such victim is an employee, she is entitled to a paid leave
of up to ten days in addition to other paid leaves under
the Labor Code, other laws, and company policies.
SPECIAL LEAVE/ SURGICAL LEAVE
A woman employee having rendered continuous
aggregate employment service of at least six (6) months
for the last twelve (12) months shall be entitled to a
special leave benefit of two (2) months with full pay
based on her gross monthly compensation following
surgery caused by gynecological disorders.
MINORS
MINIMUM EMPLOYABLE AGE
(a) No child below fifteen (15) years of age shall be
employed, except when he works directly under the sole
responsibility of his parents or guardian, and his
employment does not in any way interfere with his
schooling.
(b) Any person between fifteen (15) and eighteen (18)
years of age may be employed for such number of hours
and such periods of the day as determined by the
Secretary of Labor in appropriate regulations.
(c) The foregoing provisions shall in no case allow the
employment of a person below eighteen (18) years of
age in an undertaking which is hazardous or deleterious
in nature as determined by the Secretary of Labor.
THE FOLLOWING ARE CONSIDERED HAZARDOUS
WORKPLACES:
(a) where the nature of the work exposes the workers
to dangerous environmental elements, contaminations
or work conditions including ionizing, radiations,
chemicals, fire, flammable substances, noxious
components, and the like;
(b) where the workers are engaged in construction
work, logging, firefighting, mining, quarrying, blasting,
stevedoring, dock work, deep-sea fishing, and
mechanized farming;
(c) where the workers are engaged in the manufacture
or handling of explosives and other pyrotechnic
products;
(d) where the workers use or are exposed to heavy or
power-driven machinery or equipment; and
(e) where workers use or are exposed to power-driven
tools.
R.A. NO. 9231. SECTION 12 prohibits employment of
children below fifteen (15) years of age except:
When a child works directly under the sole
responsibility of his/her parents or legal
guardian and where only members of his/her
family are employed, provided, That his/her
employment neither endangers his/her life,
safety, health, and morals, nor impairs his/her
normal development.
The parent or legal guardian shall provide the
said child with the prescribed primary and/or
secondary education.
KASAMBAHAY
“Domestic or household service” shall mean services in
the employer’s home which is usually necessary or
desirable for the maintenance and enjoyment thereof
and includes ministering to the personal comfort and
convenience of the members of the employer’s
household, including services of family drivers.
CONTRACT OF DOMESTIC SERVICE
The original contract of domestic service shall not last for
more than two (2) years but it may be renewed for such
periods as may be agreed upon by the parties.

PROHIBITION AGAINST LABOR-ONLY CONTRACTING

Labor-only contracting is hereby declared prohibited. For

this purpose, labor only contracting shall refer to an
arrangement where:

(a) The contractor does not have substantial capital or

investments in the form of tools, equipment,
machineries, work premises, among others, and the
employees recruited and placed are performing activities
which are usually necessary or desirable to the operation
of the company, or directly related to the main business
of the principal within a definite or predetermined
period, regardless of whether such job, work or service is
to be performed or completed within or outside the
premises of the principal; or

(b) The contractor does not exercise the right to control

over the performance of the work of the employee.