Next August 15th Costa Rica will celebrate Mother’s Day. Coincidentally with this situation, the 2010 calendar brought the peculiarity that several obligatory payment holidays fall on weekends.

Further on, the celebration of December 25th and January 1^st will be Saturday. Before then, Juan Santamaría's feast, Labor Day and the Annexation of Guanacaste also came on Sunday. Even so, it is also normal that in companies that render services under the modality of 24/7, these or other holidays may fall on the workers' day off.

The Ministry of Labor and Social Security lined that holidays of obligatory payment that fall on week-ends or week days off, shall be paid by the employer.  This will be done by means of adding a day's pay to the salary of the workers under a week salary, even if they are not working on that date. 

Luis Sánchez, director of Facio & Cañas' Labor Department, Fayca-Laboral, explain that this new not binding decision is contradictory with the provisions of section 149 of the Labor Code, that establishes that employers should only indemnify workers who actually work on obligatory payment holidays. According to Sánchez, it can also be deduced from the Ministry's criterion that the measure applies to holidays of obligatory payment that coincide with the employee's day off, regardless of the day on which it falls.

The advised is not to ignore the criterion. Companies should evaluate if they can afford or not the extra payment, not only because it is consequent with the Labor Code, but considering criteria of opportunity and organizational climate. But if not considered valid, there are sufficient arguments to defend the omission of adding the payment of the additional day.

The approximate cost of complying with the measure for a company with 300 employees, with an average monthly salary of $600, would be of $8,700 per holiday. With the payment of the four obligatory holydays that in 2010 fall on Sundays, the total amount in the year would be of about $34.000. On the other hand, if the employer does not comply with this measure, the possibility that employees demand their payment exists. This demand would be resolved by a Labor Judge, in which case the criterion of the Ministry would not be binding.