Legal Working Hours in India: Are Breaks Included in the 9-Hour Workday?

Are the breaks included in the legal working hours? Can a company work for 9 hours (8+1) with 1 hour of break for 6 days?

You can work as proposed, whether in a factory or shop/establishment. Ensure that the weekly working hours do not exceed 48 hours. You may consider reducing the break period to less than 1 hour.

Yes, you can, but you should seek approval from the concerned authority. You need to obtain approval for each respective shift where you would mention the same thing (08+01). However, the working hours should be 08 hours only.

Standard working time is 8 hours per day, excluding the lunch break. If you work overtime, you will be charged according to the company's regulations.

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Intervals of rest and working hours

Intervals of rest shall be excluded from 8 hours/9 hours per day or 48 hours per week. You can have any number of intervals, but the spread over, including such intervals, should not be more than 10 hours and 30 minutes. This will help establishments adjust the working hours to 9 hours per day.

Calculating overtime

When you consider the hours per week, i.e., 48 hours, the issue arises when the establishment operates only for 5 days, as no one would be working for 48 hours. The question that is often raised when calculating overtime is whether it should be paid for the hours exceeding 48 hours or for the regular hours per week, i.e., 45 hours calculated at the rate of 9 hours per day for five days. Court verdicts like Philips India Ltd Vs Labour Court, Madras (1985 AIR 1034, 1985 SCR (3) 491) point out that if the regular working hours in a week are 45 hours, then employees should be paid wages at overtime rates for each hour exceeding that 45 hours.