What is the difference between holiday pay and premium pay, and what am I owed on a holiday?

Why

The two terms get used interchangeably and they are not the same thing. Holiday pay under Article 94 is payment for a day you did not work: on a regular holiday, every covered employee is paid their regular daily wage even if the business was closed. Premium pay is the additional compensation for work performed on a day that is not an ordinary working day, meaning a rest day, a special day, or a holiday. Overtime pay is a third thing again, and applies to hours beyond eight on any day.

On a regular holiday the rates run like this. Unworked, you receive 100% of your daily wage, provided you were present or on paid leave on the working day immediately before. Worked, you receive 200% for the first eight hours. If the regular holiday also falls on your rest day and you work it, the rate is 260%. Overtime beyond eight hours on a regular holiday carries an additional 30% of the hourly rate applicable on that day.

A special non-working day works on the opposite default. The principle is no work, no pay, so if you do not work you are not paid, unless a company policy or collective bargaining agreement grants payment. If you do work, you get 130% for the first eight hours, and 150% if the special day also falls on your rest day. Overtime on a special day again carries an additional 30% of the applicable hourly rate.

Rest days on their own carry a 30% premium: work on your scheduled rest day is paid at 130% of the daily wage for the first eight hours.

Which days are which is not fixed by a single statute. The Administrative Code, as amended by RA 9492 and RA 9849, sets out the regular holidays and the two Islamic observances, but the President issues a proclamation each year that fixes the actual dates and declares the special days. For any given year, that proclamation is the authority, not last year's list.

Not everyone is covered. Article 82 places government employees, managerial employees, field personnel, members of the employer's family dependent on them for support, domestic workers, persons in the personal service of another, and workers paid by results outside the working-conditions provisions. Holiday pay in particular also does not cover retail and service establishments regularly employing fewer than ten workers.

What to do

• Check the current year's holiday proclamation before computing anything. Whether a date is a regular holiday or a special day changes the rate completely.
• Match each day on your payslip to the right rate: 200% for a worked regular holiday, 260% if it was also your rest day, 130% for a worked special day, 150% if that fell on your rest day.
• If you were unpaid on an unworked regular holiday, check whether you were present or on paid leave the working day before. That is the only condition.
• Raise any discrepancy with HR in writing, and ask for the computation rather than just the total.
• Unpaid holiday and premium pay are money claims. File a Request for Assistance with DOLE under SEnA, and note the three-year prescriptive period running from each payday.

The law behind this