An employee might not be entitled to payment for overtime done on his own initiative

An employee demanded payment of overtime but the employer argued that the employee did not receive confirmation to work beyond the working hours.
The Labor Court rejected the employee’s claim for payment of overtime. In order for an employee to be entitled to payment of overtime, the employee must obtain the approval of the employer or be required to do so by the employer and an employee may not decide by himself to work overtime. Demand of the employer for overtime can be specifically but may be implied by organizational habit, creation of incentives to work overtime or by silent agreement. Here the employee did not indicate a special workload, benefit accruing to the employer from overtime or real-time awareness by the employer of the overtime hours’ and thus silent agreement may not be inferred. Additionally, the employer established clear rules regarding overtime payment and ensured implementation thereof in a broad and uniform manner and thus there is no place for payment of unapproved overtime.