Court of Cassation rules on weekly rest day and overtime pay

The 9th Civil Chamber of the Court of Cassation has issued a precedent-setting ruling regarding the calculation of overtime and weekly rest day wages. The court determined that including 7.5 hours of work performed on a weekly rest day in both the weekly rest day pay and the overtime pay calculation constitutes ‘duplicate payment’.

Under this ruling, an employee working on their designated weekly rest day will receive their daily wage for that day but will not be entitled to additional overtime pay for those specific hours.

The decision follows a lawsuit filed by a welding master who claimed unfair dismissal and sought various compensations, including severance, notice pay, unused annual leave, and unpaid overtime, national holiday, and weekly rest day wages. While lower courts initially ruled in favor of the employee, the Court of Cassation intervened to prevent the double accounting of wages for the same period of work.