QUESTION

Dear HR colleagues,
I work for a chain of retail business, and we hire quite a number of part timers (contract for service) whom are on hourly paid. As this Labour Day falls on Sunday, the replacement holiday will be on Monday; hence we are paying our part-timers a holiday day for Monday instead of Sunday. We have some dispute on this as they feel that they should also be paid for both Sunday and Monday.

Can I have your views on this?

Thanks.

Catherine

REPLIES & COMMENTS

REPLY 1

I understand your difficulties and why your workers are making noise. Now, we need to understand why our government is setting Monday as a replacement holiday for any public holiday that falls on the weekend. It is mainly for those employees that do not work on weekends, to have a replacement holiday/rest day, on the following work day. So back to your situation, as a company, we cannot be paying double, both on Sunday and Monday. Since government declare Monday as a replacement public holiday, then what you did, seems to be correct. This is in my opinion. From business point of view – If any public holiday falls on a Sunday, or any weekend, the retail sales output & workload is
similar.

But if the public holiday falls on a weekday, like replacement day, then the retail sales output & workload is usually higher than a normal week day. Hence in your case, it is reasonable to pay your employees, a holiday pay for Monday
instead of Sunday. You may need to convince your employees to seek their understanding for all the above. You may want to check with MOM on Labour Law, to see what is the regulations stated for such situation. In Indonesia,
there are exceptional cases for certain industries – hotel, hospital, retail, F&B, airport, service etc…In Indonesia, there is no such thing as replacement holiday for any public holiday that falls on any weekends. So it is less headache. As long as employee works on a public holiday, company will need to pay extra.

Yamada