An employee who had worked for an employer for two years filed a claim before the National Labor Court, seeking overtime compensation that, according to the employee, had not been paid during the course of employment.
During the proceedings, it emerged that on some days the employee had worked overtime, while on other days the employee had failed to complete the full number of scheduled working hours.
The legal question before the court was whether, for the purpose of calculating overtime pay, the employer could offset the employee’s missing hours against the employee’s overtime hours. In particular, the court considered whether such an internal offset could be carried out on a weekly basis, a monthly basis, or even across different months.
The National Labor Court held that any offset between overtime and missing hours must reflect the appropriate monetary value of overtime hours, rather than a simple hour-for-hour calculation, in accordance with Section 5 of the Wage Protection Law.
The court further held that such an offset may be performed only on a monthly basis. Missing work hours accrued in one month may not be offset against overtime worked in a different month.
