As a company that operates a security business, we send our employees to clients to provide security services. There are many cases where our security workers work in shifts and overtime work is frequent. Does the company have to pay overtime work allowance in the same way it has to for other employees? As for surveillance workers, I have been told that I do not need to comply with overtime allowance provisions if I obtain approval from the Minister of Employment and Labor. Do I have to apply for such permission from the labor offices of each of my clients? And once I get approval, do I have to get approval again on a regular basis?
According to Article 63 of the Labor Standards Act, the provisions pertaining to work hours, recess, and holidays shall not apply to a worker engaged in surveillance or intermittent work, whose employer has obtained approval from the Minister of Employment and Labor. Security guards are representative surveillance workers so their employer can submit an application for exemption from the requirements to comply with overtime allowance provisions for surveillance and intermittent workers with supporting documents to the regional Employment and Labor Office in the workplace’s district.
However, if you have several workplaces, it may be confusing to which regional Employment and Labor Office your application should be submitted. According to labor inspector regulations, licensing and permits are to be handled by local authorities in the jurisdiction of the workplaces to which the workers subject to the licensing or permits belong. However, in cases where two or more workplaces to which a person subject to licensing and permits belongs are located in the jurisdiction of a local authority, the local district office head who has jurisdiction over the main workplace may collect and approve and then send a copy of the letter of authorization to the local district office in charge of the other workplace(s). In this case, the local district office head who has jurisdiction over the main business establishments must ask the local district office head who has jurisdiction over the subsidiary business site to conduct an investigation of fact prior to the authorization. Therefore, it is only necessary to apply for such exclusion in one place in the jurisdiction of the district Employment and Labor Office, after which it will be handled collectively at the district office, rather than the offices with jurisdiction over the individual workplaces.
In the event that there is a change in type of work, such as carrying out other tasks besides surveillance, if the new requirements for exclusion do not meet the standard, approval for the surveillance worker will be canceled, effective from the time the cause for revocation occurred. In addition, if the number of workers engaged in the same job has increased since approval, separate approval must be obtained for the additional workers as a group.
However, such approval is based on the number of workers in the type of work and does not require the consent of each specific worker in the original application for exclusion, so even if a worker is replaced by another person, if the number has not increased, the validity of the approval remains. Additional approval is not required if the number of applicable workers decreases.