2023 Laws of Puerto Rico › TITLE TWENTY-FIVE - Internal Security (§§ 1 — 3356) › Subtitle 1 - Generally (§§ 1 — 1973) › PART III - Fire Protection (§§ 311-322 — 342h) › Chapter 32 - Puerto Rico Firefighters Corps (§§ 331 — 331bb) › § 331b-1 - Work day

(a) The legal working period of the Firefighters Corps of Puerto Rico shall not exceed eight (8) hours a day, nor forty (40) hours a week. The members of the Firefighters Corps of Puerto Rico who render services of an administrative, executive or of confidential nature, and those who are attending the training courses offered or sponsored by the Firefighters Corps of Puerto Rico, shall be excluded from the provisions of this subsection. The establishment of their respective daily as well as weekly work periods and the granting of days off corresponds to the Fire Chief.
(b) Any member of the Puerto Rico Firefighters Corps who works in excess of the legal working day established in subsection (a) of this section shall be entitled to receive payment for the hours worked in excess of said working day at the rate of double time only in emergency situations and at the rate of time and a half (1.5) in situations not of emergency but of need. Provided, That the payment of the hours shall be made within a maximum term of sixty (60) days.
(c) The chief of the working unit shall keep an attendance registry for each member of said unit in which the regular and overtime hours worked by said members shall be registered. He/she shall certify the total number of hours worked by each member, on a weekly basis, and shall state the name of the officer who authorized the overtime and the justification for authorizing it, if that is the case. After confirming the accuracy of the information thus certified, the member of the Firefighters Corps of Puerto Rico shall be bound to sign said attendance registry.
(d) The working schedule shall be drafted in such a way that the need to work overtime shall be reduced to a minimum, however, the members of the Firefighters Corps of Puerto Rico shall be bound to work overtime in the following cases:
(1) In case of an act of God or an emergency such as earthquakes, fires, floods, hurricanes, election periods, riots and any others declared as such by the Governor.
(2) When necessary for the needs of the service, and in benefit of the public service.
Provided, That the notice or authorization to work overtime shall be made prior to doing the work, except in emergencies.
(e) The time the members spend in the courts of justice as witnesses, summoned by an order to officially appear before any government or municipal official, body or committee, shall be deemed official in nature and shall be computed as the legal work schedule.
(f) The time during which a member of the Puerto Rico Firefighters Corps who is off duty or on vacation leave, is engaged in official matters, shall be deemed as time worked as of his/her legal work schedule and to compute the payment of any overtime, provided that the corresponding report accrediting his work and participation, is presented. In the event the member is on vacation leave, the day thus worked shall be added to the number of days he has accrued until then.
(g) The Chief of the Firefighters Corps shall establish, through regulations, the standards to pay overtime, the maximum number of hours the members of the Puerto Rico Firefighters Corps shall work, any exceptions to that maximum, and any other conditions that are needed to comply with the purposes of this section. These regulations shall be ready within one hundred and twenty (120) days after the effectiveness of this act.
(h) Any member of the Puerto Rico Firefighters Corps may receive, while on duty, discounts in food establishments, provided that such discount is voluntarily offered by the establishment. No member of the Puerto Rico Firefighters Corps shall offer any service in exchange for such discount.
History —June 21, 1988, No. 43, p. 163, added as § 5 on Aug. 12, 1995, No. 199, § 1; Nov. 15, 2005, No. 140, § 1; July 29, 2011, No. 167, § 4.