I am working for an IT company. The current labor contract states that I have to work from Monday to Friday and if the company requests, I have to work on the weekend. I went to work last Sunday because of a project with a short deadline. Because I worked on a Sunday, the company said I could have a day off the following Monday. Although I took Monday off this week, I worked on Sunday when it was not my contractual working day; am I legally entitled to additional compensation?
We will respond on the assumption that Sunday is designated as a “holiday.” In accordance with the Labor Standards Act, in businesses or workplaces where at least five workers are ordinarily employed, an employer has to pay 50 percent or more thereof for extended work in addition to the ordinary wages.
However, under certain conditions, an employer can substitute holidays. If the collective agreement or rules of employment specify that a holiday can be replaced by a working day, a legitimate holiday substitution has taken place in principle, unless indicated otherwise.
If so, the original holiday will become the normal working day, and the work on that day will be normal work, not holiday work, so the employer will not be obliged to pay holiday work allowance to the worker. ,
In other words, if there is no agreement on holiday substitution, all of the following requirements must be met before the holiday is legally replaced: (1) substitution of holidays must be regulated in the rules of employment, and (2) advance notice given of the requirements for holiday substitution.
If there are no regulations in the rules of employment or if notice of holiday substitution occurs after the holiday, the holidays have not been legally substituted. This means that even if the workers did not work on a regular working day because they worked on a Sunday, the workers are still entitled to holiday wages, calculated as 50% of normal wages for the Sunday work.