Employment law
Working time: 40 hours, and every exception that matters
The night guard arrives at 7 p.m. and leaves at 7 a.m., six nights a week. The cook works lunch and dinner service back to back. The receptionist does his eight hours and goes home. Three contracts, three schedules, one standard payslip. At the first inspection the question comes: on what basis did you pay those hours? The answer is not the same for all three, and the Code says so in black and white.
The companies named in this article are fictitious and used only as examples.
1. 40 hours a week, 173.33 hours a month: where the figure comes from
In every establishment covered by the Code, legal working time may not in principle exceed 40 hours a week (Labour Code, article L.131). Everything else follows from that.
The monthly figure of 173.33 hours is not an accounting convention, it is a division:
- 40 hours × 52 weeks = 2,080 hours a year
- 2,080 / 12 months = 173.33 hours a month
It is this figure, and this figure alone, that converts a monthly salary into an hourly rate. A salary of XOF 45,000 gives an hourly rate of 45,000 / 173.33 = XOF 259.62.
The most common mistake
Dividing by 160, by 176 or by the number of days in the month. Each of those approximations distorts every overtime hour of the year, one way or the other, and the correction is always made in the worker's favour before the court.
Reference point: the guaranteed minimum wage stands at XOF 40,000 a month and XOF 230.77 an hour since 1 January 2016 (Decree No. 2015-0363/P-RM of 19 May 2015). The consistency checks out: 230.77 × 173.33 = XOF 40,000. No company may go below it. See payroll in Mali.
Forty hours a week, one hundred and seventy-three and a third hours a month. Any other divisor is a payroll error.
2. The five lawful ways of organising your forty hours
Order No. 96-1566 of 7 October 1996 does not leave the choice open: establishments subject to the forty-hour week must adopt one of the following five arrangements (article A.131.2).
- cyclical hours, allowing weeks of more than 40 hours and weeks of fewer than 40 hours to alternate within the month
- shift work, with successive teams
- individualised hours, giving the worker flexibility in arranging his schedule
- part-time work, which implies no lower limit
- job sharing, which splits a full-time post into two half-time posts
Individualised hours have their own regime: they require prior notice to the labour inspector and allow, within a number of hours set by order, hours to be carried from one week to another without those hours triggering overtime pay (article L.132). It is the only free flexibility in the system. On part-time work, see part-time work in Mali.
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3. Agriculture has its own meter
On farms the meter is not weekly but annual: 2,352 hours a year (article L.131). The order spreads that volume across the seasons.
| Season | Period | Weekly hours |
|---|---|---|
| Hot season | March to June | 42 hours |
| Rainy season | July to October | 46 hours |
| Cold season | November to February | 48 hours |
Legal working time in agricultural undertakings may not exceed 48 hours a week. Beyond that, the minimum premiums are 10% for daytime overtime and 50% for night overtime; hours worked on the weekly rest day or on public holidays carry 50% by day and 100% by night (article L.138).
So never transpose the agricultural scale to a commercial establishment, or the reverse: the trigger points differ by eight hours.
4. Equivalences: paying forty hours for a longer presence
This is the most misunderstood mechanism in Malian labour law. A period of presence longer than the legal working time, but equivalent to it, is allowed for certain work because of its nature or its intermittent character (Labour Code, article L.136). And the sentence that follows is decisive: the weekly wage due for those hours of presence is the one corresponding to forty hours of effective work.
In other words, a guard present for 56 hours is paid for 40. This is not an abuse: the legislator takes the view that his presence includes idle time which is not effective work.
The list is closed. It appears in article A.136.2 of Order No. 96-1566.
| Staff concerned | Presence allowed | Equivalent to |
|---|---|---|
| Guarding, surveillance, fire service | 56 hours a week | 40 hours |
| Wholesale and semi-wholesale trade, docks, general stores, retail of goods other than foodstuffs | 42 hours a week | 40 hours |
| Retail sale of foodstuffs | 46 hours a week | 40 hours |
| Cooks in drinking establishments, cafés, restaurants and hotels | 45 hours a week | 40 hours |
| Other staff of those same establishments | 50 hours a week | 40 hours |
| Hospitals, hospices, clinics, dispensaries, health centres and similar establishments | 45 hours a week | 40 hours |
| Hairdressing shops and salons | 50 hours a week | 40 hours |
| Domestic staff and household employees | 260 hours a month | 173 hours and one third |
Two lines are almost always missing from the articles in circulation: retail sale of foodstuffs at 46 hours, and hairdressing salons at 50 hours. If you run a food shop or a salon, those are precisely your thresholds.
A special case: resident caretakers housed on the premises they watch are required to be continuously present, subject to twenty-four hours' rest a week and two weeks' paid annual leave on top of statutory leave (same article).
The most common mistake, in both directions
Some employers pay a guard 56 hours with premiums, and ruin themselves without being required to. Others apply an equivalence to a post that is not on the list: a driver, a storekeeper, a cleaner, and end up owing sixteen overtime hours a week. The list is exhaustive: if your post is not on it, legal working time is forty hours.
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5. Overtime: the rates, and the ceilings nobody quotes
Any hour worked beyond legal working time gives rise, failing a collective or company agreement, to a wage premium at the following minimum rates (Labour Code, article L.137).
| When the overtime hour falls | Minimum premium |
|---|---|
| Working day, daytime, 41st to 48th hour inclusive | 10% |
| Working day, daytime, beyond the 48th hour | 25% |
| Working day, night-time | 50% |
| Non-working day, daytime | 50% |
| Non-working day, night-time | 100% |
Example. An employee of Résidence Niger is paid XOF 45,000 a month for legal working time. He works twelve daytime overtime hours on working days in the same week.
- Hourly rate: 45,000 / 173.33 = XOF 259.62
- 41st to 48th hour, that is 8 hours at +10%: 259.62 × 1.10 = XOF 285.58, then 8 × 285.58 = XOF 2,284.64
- 49th to 52nd hour, that is 4 hours at +25%: 259.62 × 1.25 = XOF 324.53, then 4 × 324.53 = XOF 1,298.12
- Total overtime due: 2,284.64 + 1,298.12 = XOF 3,582.76
The three ceilings
The Code sets the rates, the order sets the limits, and it is the limits that get forgotten.
- Overtime intended to maintain or increase output is capped at 18 hours a week. The labour inspector's authorisation is granted for a renewable three-month period (Order No. 96-1566, article A.140.2).
- In exceptional circumstances the inspector may authorise an overrun, but the duration may never exceed 60 hours a week (same article).
- Hours for urgent and exceptional work in the event of an extraordinary surge are capped at 75 hours a year; hours intended to prevent an imminent accident or to repair damage to equipment are limited to 2 hours a day (article A.140.1).
Finally, a lump-sum settlement of overtime is effective only if it gives the worker pay at least equal to what is legally due (article L.139). An « all-in » package protects you only if it is more favourable, and the burden of showing that is yours.
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6. Recovery and extensions: the hours that carry no premium
Two mechanisms allow the schedule to be exceeded without paying a premium. Both are tightly framed.
Recovery first. Where work is collectively interrupted by accidental causes or force majeure: damage to equipment, loss of motive power, shortage of raw materials or transport, disaster, bad weather, the day may be extended to recover the hours lost. Recovery hours are paid at the normal rate (article L.134). Hours lost through strike or lock-out are expressly excluded.
Extensions next. The daily duration may be extended for preparatory or complementary work and for operations that cannot technically be completed within the regulatory deadlines (article L.135). Order No. 96-1566 gives the list and the maximum durations: up to half an hour for a team leader whose presence is essential to coordinate two successive shifts, up to one hour for drivers, delivery staff and storekeepers, up to one hour for medical service staff, up to four hours for guarding staff without the weekly duration exceeding fifty-six hours.
The distinction is simple: recovery makes up hours that were lost, extension absorbs a technical constraint. Neither is overtime, and neither can be invented.
Recovering hours is not working overtime. The hours still have to have been genuinely lost.
7. Night, weekly rest and public holidays
Night work means work carried out between nine in the evening and five in the morning (article L.141). That definition governs the 50% premium on working days and the 100% premium on non-working days.
Weekly rest is compulsory and lasts at least twenty-four hours. It falls on Sunday in principle and may in no case be replaced by compensatory pay (Labour Code, article L.142). Establishments whose activity cannot stop without serious inconvenience to community life may give it on a rota on another day (article L.143).
That last rule is absolute: buying out a worker's weekly rest is unlawful, even with his agreement and even at a generous rate.
For public holidays that are non-working and paid (Labour Code, article L.145), Decree No. 96-178, as amended by Decree No. 2022-0125/PT-RM of 4 March 2022, distinguishes four situations (new articles D.145.1 and D.145.2).
| Public holiday | Worker paid monthly | Worker paid by the hour or the day |
|---|---|---|
| Actually not worked | Normal wage maintained, no reduction | No wage due |
| Worked (establishment that cannot interrupt work) | Normal wage maintained, no increase on that ground | Wage corresponding to the schedule operated |
In establishments that cannot interrupt work, employees working on a public holiday are entitled, on top of their maintained wage, to a payment calculated under articles L.137 and L.138 (article D.145.1).
Two particular protections, finally: the rest of women and children must last at least twelve consecutive hours (article L.186), and children may in no case be employed on effective work for more than eight hours a day (Decree No. 96-178, article D.189-15).
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8. What getting it wrong costs
Breaches of articles L.131 to L.138 are punishable by a fine of XOF 5,000 to 18,000, rising to XOF 15,000 to 50,000 for a repeat offence (Labour Code, article L.325). The figure looks small. It is not.
The fine is incurred as many times as there are offences, in particular as many times as there are workers employed in conditions contrary to the law, up to fifty times the maximum rate, that is XOF 900,000 (article L.335).
But the real bill lies elsewhere: back pay.
Example. At Résidence Niger a waiter is paid XOF 45,000 a month for legal working time, but actually works 48 hours a week.
- Hourly rate: 45,000 / 173.33 = XOF 259.62
- 8 overtime hours a week, daytime, working days, 41st to 48th hour: +10%
- Premium rate: 259.62 × 1.10 = XOF 285.58
- Overtime hours per month: 8 × 52 / 12 = 34.67 hours
- Monthly shortfall: 34.67 × 285.58 = XOF 9,901
- Over three years: 9,901 × 36 = XOF 356,436, for one worker alone
Why three years? Because claims for wages, wage accessories, bonuses and allowances are time-barred after three years (Labour Code, article L.118), and the period runs from the date the wages fall due (article L.119). Multiply by the number of workers in the same position and you have the real cost of a wrong calculation base. On the safety obligations that go with atypical schedules, see health and safety at work.
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Key takeaways in 6 points
- Divide every monthly salary by 173.33 hours, never by any other figure.
- Explicitly choose one of the five ways of organising the forty-hour week and write it into the contract.
- Check the closed list in article A.136.2 to see whether your post falls under an equivalence, and then pay forty hours for the presence allowed.
- Apply the 10, 25, 50 and 100% rates according to when the hour falls, and never exceed 60 hours of weekly presence.
- Never replace weekly rest with a payment, even with the worker's agreement.
- Reconstruct three years of overtime before an inspection: that is how long wages remain claimable.