Nine out of ten overtime hours worked in Colombia are not paid by companies: This is revealed by the study ‘Quality of working life in Colombia’, carried out by the Center for Regional Economic Studies-Ceer of the Banco de la República.
This means that companies in Colombia are not only violating their rights to workers, but also to the State for not making a report of all social security contributions by not contemplating the concept of overtime.
What are overtime?
According to article 127 of the Substantive Labor Code, overtime are those that exceed the ordinary daytime shift of eight hours a day or 48 hours a week.
“Overtime constitutes salary, in the manner established in article 127 of the Substantive Labor Code, which means an inalienable right of the worker, that is, that Even if the employee wants to sign the employer that it is not his intention to charge him for the extra hours he works, that stipulation would be considered as not done”points out the lawyer specializing in labor law, Orlando Giraldo in an article published by the National Institute of Public Accountants.
Also read: How much were overtime and holidays with a rise in the minimum wage?
The extra daytime hour is the one that is worked between 6:00 in the morning and 9:00 at night. Daytime overtime is paid with a surcharge of 25% on the ordinary value of the hour.
For his part, nighttime overtime, or night supplementary work, is work that occurs between 9:00 p.m. and 6:00 a.m. Overtime at night is paid with a surcharge of 75%.
Also, when the worker works on a Sunday or a holiday, the work must be paid with a surcharge of 75% for corresponding to paid rest days. In addition, extra hours on Sundays or holidays are paid with a surcharge of 100% if it is during the day and 150% if it is at night.
How to calculate the value of an extra hour?
The Gerencie.com Portal explains very well the formula to be able to identify overtime in Colombia. “The value of the ordinary hour is the one that corresponds to the normal monthly salary of the worker, divided between the hours worked in a month, which are 240 days, so that: Ordinary hour = Monthly salary / 240”.
That is, assuming a monthly salary of $1,800,000, we have an ordinary hour of $7,500 (1.800.000/240 = 7.500).
It is worth noting that overtime must be paid to the worker along with the payroll for the same month, workedas indicated in the substantive labor code in article 134: “The payment of supplementary work or overtime and the surcharge for night work must be made together with the ordinary salary of the period in which they have been caused, or at the latest with salary for the following period.
Also: How do overtime work in Colombia?
What is the maximum overtime that a worker can do?
Regardless of the profession, article 167 of the Labor Code indicates that Under no circumstances may overtime work hours, whether day or night, exceed 2 hours a day and 12 hours a week. In other words, overtime does have a legal limit that every employer must respect.
Can overtime be compensated for rest days?
The answer is yes. All overtime can be made up with days off. These are compensated with equivalent times, adding the overtime worked and computing them by working hours. These must be compensated within a period not exceeding four months.
In conclusion, There are only two paths to overtime: or they are paid, or they are compensated with equivalent rest times. However, it must be taken into account that, in order to collect overtime, these must be demonstrable and the employee must prove that they worked overtime.