Night Shift allowance - What legal problems to be faced if employer do not pay night shift allowance?

Dear all, Should we compulsorily pay night shift allowance to the employees working in night shifts.in which law it is specifed and what is the compensation % or rate to be paid to the employee.and what are the statutory requirements to be provided to the employee during the night shift. What legal problems to be faced if employer do not pay night shift allowance.

There is no law which specifies night shift allowance. But it is customary to compensate for the hardship that one can face during nightshift, an allowance will be paid on each day of the shift. But where the bargaining agents are there they would influence the management to pay for this hardship as a allowance.

Dear Mars,
To my knowledge, Night Shift Allowance is not statutory. But it has become conventional either to provide some refreshments by the employer or to pay some fixed amount in lieu there of in view of the physiological negative impact likely to occur due to working at night. Medical research has proved that continuos sleepless night work certainly affects "the circadian rhythm" of our body. Therefore, legal or not, night shift allowance would be essential from the point of view of health of such employees who are frequently required to work during nights. The internal economies accrued to the employers through continuous operations would also justify this head of allowance.

As rightly mentioned by both senior members there is no mandatory requirement of night shift allowance. Nowadays in almost all cities you will find callcentres/BPO/KPO etc., they work only in night as per the timing of their foreign counterpart. They are paid high salaries compared to other market rates

Legally we need not to pay any night shift allowance. Being paid to motivate the employees for the better production.