Is a Rotating Weekly Off Legal for Maintenance Teams in the Automotive Industry?

Hi all, I am in the automotive industry and leading the maintenance and project department. As a service department, and necessary for the availability of the team on all days, we are planning to create a shift chart with staged off. All team members have fixed weekly off except the shift team. The shift team's weekly off starts on Thursday for the first shift team, Friday for the second shift team, and Saturday for the third shift team. The general reliever team relieves them and takes their weekly off on Sunday. After the shift rotation, the weekly off day changes for a person working the next week. This means that the person who had their weekly off on Thursday last week, and is scheduled for the third shift next week, will have their weekly off on Saturday. This applies to all shift team members.

In short, shift team members' weekly off shifts every week between Thursday, Friday, and Saturday.

Now, my simple question is, according to the law, is it necessary to have a fixed weekly off?

Please provide feedback and ask for any clarification if needed.

Factory Classification and Shift Management Under the Factories Act

The way you have projected yours is a factory under the Factories Act. Your query is on Form 11 - Notice of periods of work for adults under section 61 of The Factories Act, 1948.

'Where any group is to work on a system of shifts and the relays are to be subject to predetermined periodical changes of shifts, the manager of the factory shall draw up a scheme of shifts whereunder the periods during which any relay of the group may be required to work and the relay which will be working at any time of the day shall be known for any day, which has to be approved by the Inspectorate.'

Dear Colleague, In addition to what our colleague clarified.

Shift System Compliance with the Factories Act 1948

The shift system must comply with Sections 51 and 52 of the Factories Act 1948. The shift system you have implemented should align with these sections. Please check the hours of work in weeks where the weekly off is shifting from day A to day B, etc.

Section 51: Weekly Hours

No adult worker shall be required or allowed to work in a factory for more than forty-eight hours in any week.

Section 52: Weekly Holidays

(1) No adult worker shall be required or allowed to work in a factory on the first day of the week (hereinafter referred to as the said day), unless:

(a) he has or will have a holiday for a whole day on one of the three days immediately before or after the said day, and

(b) the manager of the factory has, before the said day or the substituted day under clause (a), whichever is earlier:

(i) delivered a notice at the office of the Inspector of his intention to require the worker to work on the said day and of the day which is to be substituted, and

(ii) displayed a notice to that effect in the factory:

Provided that no substitution shall be made which will result in any worker working for more than ten days consecutively without a holiday for a whole day.

(2) Notices given under sub-section (1) may be cancelled by a notice delivered at the office of the Inspector and a notice displayed in the factory not later than the day before the said day or the holiday to be cancelled, whichever is earlier.

(3) Where, in accordance with the provisions of sub-section (1), any worker works on the said day and has had a holiday on one of the three days immediately before it, that said day shall, for the purpose of calculating his weekly hours of work, be included in the preceding week.