Short answer. Yes, generally. Article 89 lets an employer require overtime work when there is urgent work to be performed on machines, installations, or equipment, in order to avoid serious loss or damage to the employer. Repairing a genuine machine breakdown under these conditions falls within that ground, and overtime pay still applies.
What the law says
When there is urgent work to be performed on machines, installations, or equipment, in order to avoid serious loss or damage to the employer or some other cause of similar nature
Labor Code, Article 89 — Emergency Overtime Work. Read the full provision →
What the law says
Any employee required to render overtime work under this Article shall be paid the additional compensation required in this Chapter.
Labor Code, Article 89 — Emergency Overtime Work. Read the full provision →
The urgent-machine-work ground
Article 89 lists five separate situations in which an employer may require overtime work, and the third is squarely about machinery: when there is urgent work to be performed on machines, installations, or equipment, in order to avoid serious loss or damage to the employer or some other cause of similar nature. A machine breakdown that needs urgent repair to stop the employer from suffering serious loss or damage fits this ground directly, giving the employer a recognized legal basis to require overtime for that repair work.
What makes the work 'urgent' under this ground
The key qualifier is 'urgent,' tied to avoiding 'serious loss or damage.' The article is not written to cover routine maintenance an employer could just as easily schedule during normal hours; it is aimed at situations where delaying the work would let loss or damage to the employer actually occur or get worse. Whether a specific breakdown counts as urgent enough turns on those facts — how serious the threatened loss or damage genuinely is — rather than on the mere fact that a machine has stopped working.
The other four grounds, for context
The other four grounds Article 89 recognizes are different in character: a declared war or national or local emergency; the need to prevent loss of life or property, or address imminent danger to public safety from disasters like fire, flood, or earthquake; work necessary to prevent loss or damage to perishable goods; and finishing work already begun before the eighth hour where stopping would seriously obstruct the employer's business. The machine-repair ground stands on its own among these, focused specifically on urgent work on machines, installations, or equipment.
You still get paid for the overtime
Being required to work overtime under this ground does not mean working it for free. The article closes with a general rule that applies across all five grounds: any employee required to render overtime work under this Article shall be paid the additional compensation required in this Chapter. So even overtime worked specifically to address a machine breakdown still has to be compensated at the additional rate the Labor Code sets for overtime work.