Act provides for one rest day in every seven

Claris Ogangah

QUESTION: How many days should one work in a week and how many days is one entitled to as annual leave? Also Monday to Friday 8am to 5pm are usually considered complete working days in majority of firms. Working on Saturdays is usually for half a day. But when one applies for leave, Saturday is now considered a full day when in actual fact many just work for half day. Is this fair and is the law clear on it?

Section 27 of the Employment Act deals with whether we should work for five or six days. Section 27(2) provides as follows:

‘Notwithstanding subsection (1), an employee shall be entitled to at least one rest day in every period of seven days."

Therefore, the issue is not whether Saturday should be considered half or full working day, as the Act clearly says as employees we are entitled to at least one day of rest. Looking at your situation, your employer actually allows you one and a half rest days and as such considers part of Saturdays as working days.

This means that if you normally get Sundays off then Saturday should, following the above provision, be a full working day and your employer is actually giving you an extra half day off work.

What matters is that you are allowed to have at least one day of rest in a week.

Leave days

On the other issue of counting leave days, Section 28(a) provides as follows:

28(1) An employee shall be entitled-

(a) After every 12 consecutive months of service with his employer to not less than 21 working days of leave with full pay.

The issue of leave days is therefore counted in terms of days and as the section states, it must be at least 21 days in a year.

In calculating this, it is important to note how your employer treats Saturdays and in your case they are working days. So if he includes Saturdays as full leave days then he is actually correct.

It is important to read the Act wholesomely to enable you connect the provisions because if you only read Section 28 you will think you are entitled to 21 working days while if you look at Section 27, it clarifies what working days amount to.

Thus I think your employer is neither unfair not unjust as his actions are within the provisions of sections 27 and 28 of the Employment Act.