(1)Subject to subsections (2) and (3), in all establishments, the maximum working hours for employees shall be forty-eight hours per week.

(2)The employer and the employee may agree that the maximum working hours per week shall not be less than forty-eight hours.

(3)Subject to subsection (4), an employer and employee may agree that the normal working hours in a week shall be more than forty-eight hours.

(4)Hours of work shall not, except as provided in subsection (5), exceed ten hours per day or fifty-six hours per week.

(5)Where persons are employed in shifts, it shall be permissible to employ persons in excess of ten hours in any one day or forty-eight hours in any one week, where the average number of hours over a period of three weeks exceeds neither ten hours per day nor fifty-six hours per week.

(6)In any establishment where the maximum working hours are at least eight hours per day, a thirty minute break shall be granted each day to the employees.

(7)The Minister may, after consultation with the Board, and subject to the provisions of this section and section 53, regulate the maximum number of hours per week including overtime work, which may be worked in any industry or occupation and may, by order, provide for temporary exceptions in extraordinary situations where the public interest so requires.

(8)Where hours in excess of eight hours per day or forty-eight hours per week are worked, they shall, in the absence of a written agreement to the contrary, be remunerated at the minimum rate of one and a half times of the normal hourly rate if the overtime is on the normal working days, and at two times the hourly rate where the overtime is worked on gazetted public holidays.