Mexico's Second Chamber of the Supreme Court recently decided that to calculate the weekly overtime pay, minutes worked exceeding the regular work day must be counted cumulatively for the entire workweek and paid in full hour units.1 Under this new method, any time period exceeding the legal work day must be considered as overtime and added to complete hours.
For example, consider an employee working eight-hour workdays who works 129 minutes of overtime on a given week, as follows:
|
Monday |
Tuesday |
Wednesday |
Thursday |
Friday |
Saturday |
Sunday |
||
|
Hours Worked |
8:45 |
8:50 |
8:12 |
8:00 |
8:17 |
8:05 |
||
|
Overtime Minutes |
45 |
50 |
12 |
00 |
17 |
05 |
||
|
TOTAL: |
129 |
Here, because the employee worked a total of two hours and nine minutes of overtime, he/she is entitled to two hours of overtime pay. As per the Court's decision, the minutes of overtime within the workweek will be paid as long as they complete full hours. "Surplus" minutes (here, the nine minutes) are not quantifiable and are not computed towards the overtime. In fact, according to the Court, those "surplus" minutes do not constitute time worked beyond the regular work shift and may be considered as the time employees use to start the work day or to leave the workplace.
Employers should incorporate these new rules into their current payroll practices to ensure full compliance with this court decision.
We will continue to monitor and report on employment and labor law developments as they occur.
Footnotes
1 Decision by the Second Chamber of the Supreme Court, No. 107/2018.
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