How to define overtime
It is well known that health care professions are among the most time-consuming professions. The need for long overtime hours is based on the specifics of the operation of healthcare facilities and the continuous need to provide healthcare. These needs are also reflected in the legislation, which often deviates from the general regulation of overtime and gives rise to some controversy.
According to the Labour Code, overtime work generally means
- work performed by an employee in excess of the fixed weekly working hours resulting from a predetermined working time schedule,
- work performed outside the work shift schedule.
The theory of the law is that overtime can only be ordered in exceptional circumstances for serious operational reasons. Overtime work ordered by the employer to an employee may not exceed 150 hours per year and 8 hours per week. The employer and the employee may agree, over and above this statutory provision, that the annual limit on overtime work shall be up to 208 hours in 26 weeks (8 hours per week). In a collective agreement, i.e. an agreement between the trade union and the employer, this limit may be further increased to 416 hours spread over 52 weeks. For some time now, there have been increasing efforts to further increase these limits and to modify overtime work, particularly among health care workers.
Recent legislative changes
For example, the Young Doctors’ initiative Don’t Be a Raccoon, which responded to the increase in the overtime limit for physicians and non-medical health care workers to 832 hours per year, or up to 1040 hours for emergency medical service workers, resonated in the public space at the end of last year. As a result of the wave of protest, which consisted mainly in the termination of the original overtime agreements for 416 hours of overtime, this increase was cancelled on 31.12.2023, thus “warming up” the Labour Code for only 3 months (from 1.10. to 31.12. 2023). On the basis of the amendment to the Labour Code No. 413/2023 Coll., the maximum annual limit of overtime work in the healthcare sector was again reduced from 832 hours to 416 hours. However, this amendment also brought so-called super shifts of up to 24 hours to the healthcare sector.
According to this regulation, the working hours of certain employees in the healthcare sector in continuous operation (typically hospital facilities) may be up to 24 hours in a consecutive 26-hour period. This model may be applied by the employer on the basis of a collective agreement or an internal regulation, provided that the employer does not have a trade union. The employer is also obliged to enter into a written agreement with the employee, which the employee should not be forced to do by law.
The 24-hour limit is achieved by a combination of a normal shift (max 12 hours) and overtime. In practice, a shift can be arranged as follows, for example :
12 hours shift + 12 hours overtime
8 hours shift + 16 hours overtime
10 hours shift + 14 hours overtime
The 26 consecutive hours are based on the obligation to give the employee a meal and rest break of at least 30 minutes after every 6 hours of continuous work. After such a 24-hour shift (or 26 hours after breaks), the employee is entitled to 22 hours of uninterrupted rest.
Of course, health care workers are also entitled to an additional payment of at least 25% of their average earnings for overtime work. In lieu of this supplement, they may agree with their employer to provide compensatory time off to the extent of the hours worked during overtime. However, the specific calculation of the supplement varies according to whether the employee is remunerated in the private sector by a wage or in the public sector by a salary. In the case of remuneration by (tabular) salary, which, given the structure of the domestic health sector, concerns the majority of employees, overtime pay is regulated by Article 127 of the Labour Code. In contrast to an employee remunerated by salary, the law specifies the exact list of all other additional payments that an employee is entitled to in addition to the overtime payment in proportion to the hour of overtime work. In some cases, a higher supplement of 50% is also provided for.
However, voices are already being raised again that even these changes and the newly introduced 24-hour shifts are not sustainable in the long term, given the lack of staff, and an increase in overtime above 416 hours is inevitable.
In this discussion, it is often argued that overtime increases are voluntary and employees are not obliged to accept them under the Labour Code. However, such a statement is only theoretically true in the reality of the daily operations of health care facilities and the careers of its employees. Employees in the health care sector are dependent on their employer and the fulfilment of its overtime requirements not only financially but also in terms of their professional progress, for example, in the form of the fulfilment of attestations. The sense of duty of these employees, who feel responsible for their patients and other colleagues who may have to ‘cover’ for them, cannot be ignored. On the other hand, it is undeniably true that without these high time subsidies, the current form of healthcare in the Czech Republic is unsustainable and its blanket rejection would have an impact on the quality and availability of healthcare. In this context, one can only wish that any future discussions on this topic would be conducted rationally and with full awareness of the day-to-day reality of the Czech healthcare system and the lives of the staff concerned.
This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice or guidance for any particular case.
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