Answer:
The Employer can set forth the working regime of the Employee on a daily or weekly basis. If working on a daily basis, normal working hours applicable to the Employee will not exceed 08 hours per day. If working on a weekly basis, normal working hours will not exceed 10 hours per day[1].
Any Employee who works in shifts and have a continuous working time of 06 hours or more will be entitled to a break of at least 30 minutes, or 45 minutes on the night shift (included in working hours)[2]. In addition to the prescribed rest time, the Employer can add “other short breaks” to the enterprise’s ILR. Specifically, the term “other short breaks” is often interpreted as an extra break for the Employee which is shorter than the 30-minute or 45-minute break specified above.
Thus, in principle, the regulation of intermittent working regime the total of which does not exceed 08 hours per day (from 7:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. and from 5:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m.) is in accordance with the Labour Code. However, the Employee’ non-working hours that they have to ensure being present when required as from 12:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m. due to the characteristics of manufacturing such as waiting for raw materials from other stages or other units, can still be considered as the working time of the Employee. Because, in fact, the Employee is always ready to take assignments from the Employer during those non-working hours. Therefore, this may result in total working hours of the Employee exceeding 08 hours or even 10 hours per day and violates the Labour Code. The Employer stipulating and requesting the Employee to work under the above working regime can be subjected to administrative sanctions up to VND50,000,000[3].
[1] Article 105 of the Labour Code
[2] Article 109 of the Labour Code.
[3] Articles 5.1 and 174.3(a) of the Decree 28/2020/ND-CP of the Government dated 01/3/2020.
