A whole day off each week and double wages for overtime: the Kerala Shops and Commercial Establishments Act

Background

Working hours in shops and offices in Kerala are set by this Act. It was passed as Kerala Act No. 34 of 1960 and applied in the first instance to the city of Trivandrum and to listed municipal and panchayat areas. The daily limit is eight hours and the weekly limit forty-eight hours. With overtime the total for a day may not pass ten hours — save on days of stock taking and preparation of accounts — and overtime itself is capped at fifty hours in a quarter. The extra work is paid for at twice the ordinary rate of wages. No spell of work may run beyond four hours without an interval for rest of at least one hour, and the spread over is capped at ten and a half hours in any day. Every shop stays entirely closed on one day of the week, and every employee is allowed a holiday of one whole day each week, unless his employment that week is under six days. An employee earns twelve days of holidays with wages after twelve months of continuous service, and these may be accumulated up to twenty-four days. A commercial establishment covers offices, hotels, restaurants and places of public amusement, but not a factory to which the Factories Act applies.