Employees have the right to reduce working hours in the following cases:
For the care of a minor under 12 years of age , who in addition to being your own child may be the child of your spouse or common-law partner.
Care of a relative up to the second degree of consanguinity who does not work and cannot support himself/herself.
Be responsible belize email list for a person with a physical, mental or sensory disability.
Caring for a child under 18 years of age due to hospitalisation or ongoing treatment for a serious illness. Here the minimum reduction is 50% and there is no maximum.
The company may refuse to reduce working hours if two employees of the same company request it to care for the same family member. As regards salary, this implies an equal reduction in salary , as well as in benefits,
although some salary concepts, such as transport bonus, do not see their amount reduced.
Reduction in working hours and salary, and what about social benefits?
More than the question of salary, the main objection that companies usually put forward in this regard has to do with schedules for organisational reasons. The reduction of working hours always has to be done within the worker's schedule. In the case of rotating shifts, the request for a reduction often has to do with the request to access a fixed shift and stop working weekends. The reduction must be requested in writing with a minimum of 15 days' notice . It is necessary to establish a notice period at the end of the same, also with 15 days' notice.
The reduction in salary means that contributions are based on the salary actually received , with the company paying the corresponding percentage to Social Security according to the new scale. However, during the first two years of reduced working hours to care for a child and during the first year of the reduction to care for other family members, the contributions will be taken into account at 100% in the case of applications for permanent disability, death, maternity, paternity and retirement benefits.
But what happens if the employment relationship ends with reduced working hours? If your contract has ended and you have to apply for unemployment benefit, it will be calculated as if there were no reduction in working hours, increasing up to 100% of the contribution prior to the reduction. In this way, the worker would receive the same benefit as if he or she had continued in his or her job without the reduction in working hours. In this case, there are no time limits as in the previous Social Security benefits.
In other words, if a worker has been working reduced hours for four years to care for a child and his or her contract or employment relationship with the company ends, for the purposes of unemployment benefits, he or she would have the same regulatory basis as if he or she had not requested such a reduction in hours. This is a way of not undermining the rights of workers once they have to request their benefits.
In the case of dismissal , compensation must be calculated with the salary as if there were no reduction in working hours, provided that the maximum time of the reduction has not been exceeded. In addition, in the event of being dismissed in this circumstance, a null dismissal may be requested , although workers may be dismissed if it is proven that there are justifiable causes for doing so.
