MANILA - Employers who violate their employees' rest hours will be penalized under a proposed measure, a senator said Monday.

An employee is entitled P1,000 per hour if there's no overtime work arrangement and they are troubled outside of their work hours under the Senate Bill No. 2475 or "Workers' Rest Law," according to its author Senator Francis Tolentino.

• Right to disconnect gains ground as pandemic brings work home

"Given the pandemic... there is no clear demarcation now between your work hour and your own personal time, your family time and it has now reached a point where your work-life balance environment has been affected," he told ANC's Headstart.

"This bill will ensure that the employee will be more productive because it now recognizes that he has a right to attend to his family role...at the same time because the law will now recognize your right, you will now be more productive."

Tolentino said the right to disconnect will "help both the employee and employer" to make the former more productive.

"There are distractions in working from home that’s why we must give employees to really fill the demarcation between family life and work life. This will lead to more productive employees," he said.

"You don’t have to be inundated by calls, text messages coming from your employer in the middle of the night telling what is expected of you."

The senator said he also agrees with a 4-day work week.

"I proposed that years ago, a compressed workweek or flexischedule. It has to be agreed upon by employer-employee," he said.

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