Often organised in unions, workers may choose this form of industrial action to bargain for a higher rate of pay, better working conditions or to discourage an employer from making redundancies.
Where an industry-wide overtime ban must be carried out at multiple individual places of work, unions play an especially important role in helping workers to act in a unified way.
An example of this occurred when three broadcasting unions known at ACTT, BETA and EETPU collaborated to impose an overtime ban on an English production company called HTV in 1990.
[4] The result of the union action was that it caused significant disruption to the daily functioning of the company, forcing it to reschedule a number of their productions and miss routine news coverage that viewers would have expected to see.
[5] The BBC, which relied heavily on overtime workers to create and air their programmes on time, was unable to deliver much of the television schedule that had been planned over the peak period.
In this case, the National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers (RMT), were encouraging its members to consider organising an overtime ban in a larger effort to secure a pay increase and to prohibit compulsory redundancies.
[7] Only in "emergency circumstances" could employers refuse to abide by this law, defined as "an unpredictable or unavoidable occurrence at (an) unscheduled interval relating to health care delivery that requires immediate action".
[8] The pilots were motivated to enact the ban because they felt that issues regarding their contracts – including problems related to "wages, job security and benefits" – had not been satisfactorily addressed by United Airlines during the negotiation period.
[8] South African law encourages workers to reach settlements with employers before carrying out industrial actions of any sort, including overtime bans.
In the case of Macsteel (Pty) Ltd v National Union of Metalworkers of SA & Others (1989) 10 ILJ 285 (IC), employees were found to be using an overtime ban as an "unfair labour practice" because it was being used to "soften up" the employer prior to negotiations being reached during statutory dispute settlement.
In Nordic countries, being Sweden, Denmark, Norway and Finland, a high percentage of the population is employed by the public sector and belong to centralised, nationwide trade unions founded in the 19th and 20th centuries.
For this reason, unions and employers are highly motivated to settle disputes through negotiation before any form of industrial action, including overtime bans, are implemented.
[11] The ban lasted three days following a breakdown in communication between staff and Finnair who "struggled to find common ground on a new collective bargaining agreement".
[11] The Clearing Bank Union (CBU) was responsible for mobilising workers in the financial sector to threaten and enact a number of successful overtime bans between 1985 and 1989.
[12] In 1987, 70,000 members in Lloyds, NatWest and Barclays decided to enact an overtime ban for 16 weeks following unsuccessful negotiations with management for a pay rise.
[14] Mort's Dock also privileged a small group of workers with large amounts of overtime work so that they could avoid hiring more hands throughout the day.
[15] The Irish Minister for Health, Simon Harris, considered this to be an irresponsible decision that put vulnerable people at risk due to the lack of care available to them during the strike period.
[15] Another case of controversy arose when the London government was criticised by its mayor in 2016 when "thousands of commuters suffered" because train drivers imposed an overtime ban to protest their working conditions.