Are Rejoining Employees Entitled to Gratuity After Service Breaks in the Restaurant Industry?

I would like your kind advice on the issue below:

I am in the restaurant industry under the U.P. Shop and Establishment Act. Our employees are covered under the PF & ESI scheme. A few workers left their services due to personal reasons, and after 3 to 6 months, they want to rejoin us. In this case, we register them again in PF with a different PF number but the same ESI number.

Query on Gratuity Entitlement

My query is whether they are entitled to gratuity for their services with us in breaks (break in two or three times with 3 or more months) and its legal issues.

Thanks,
Mirza Nafees Beg

Rejoining Employees: ESIC, UAN, and Gratuity Considerations

1. Allotting old ESIC numbers to rejoining employees is a great move and will have a positive impact on employees.

2. I suppose you have completed the UAN registration for your company. In this case, allotting different PF numbers will require linking them to their old UAN. Please be careful to avoid generating duplicate UANs for rejoining cases.

3. Gratuity payment, considering the break, will depend on the period of service they had before leaving the company and will be at the discretion of management. The act itself does not qualify rejoining cases for gratuity payment. If I have made any mistakes in my response, please correct me.

Regards, Nishant

Hello,

Please find the attached UP Shops and Establishment Act, which is downloaded from [Simpliance - Labour Law Compliance](http://www.simpliance.in), a free online labor law library. You can visit the website to check for related forms, rules, etc., and the same can be downloaded at no cost. I found this website very useful and informative.

Hope this information is helpful.

Thanks