Travelling time for workers with no fixed workplace counts as working time
In the case of Federacion
de Servicios Privados del Sindicato Comisiones Obreras v Tyco
Integrated Security SL and Another, the European Court of
Justice has confirmed the decision of the Advocate General given in
June 2015. It was the view of the Advocate General that
travelling workers who have no fixed or habitual workplace should
be able to count the time spent travelling from home to the first
customer and from the last customer back to their homes as "working
time" under the Working Time Directive. It was the view of
the Advocate General that travelling is an integral part of the
work of such "peripatetic workers" and is a necessary means of
providing services to the customers, meaning that it should be
regarded as forming part of the worker's activities.
The employer TIS employed
approximately 75 workers in Spain to install and maintain security
equipment in business premises and homes. Each worker was
assigned to a central office in Madrid but each has a
responsibility for a particular geographical area. Each
worker had the use of a company vehicle in which they travelled
every day from their homes to the place where they would carry out
the installation of maintenance work. They would use the
vehicle in which they travelled to work to return home at the end
of the day. The amount of travel varied but could sometimes
be in excess of 100 kilometres. Under the company's policy,
neither the first of last journey of the day, namely the journey
from the worker's home to the first customer and the journey from
the last customer to the worker's home was counted as working
time. The working day was therefore, calculated as running
from the worker's arrival at the first customer of the day to the
time when the worker left the premises of the last customer.
The workers had sought to challenge this classification as been
contrary to the EU Working Time Directive. The Spanish Court
had therefore, referred the case to the European Court of Justice
seeking clarification on the meaning of working
time.
The European Court of Justice
has now given its judgment and confirmed the earlier conclusion
reached by the Advocate General. The European Court of
Justice concluded that the worker's journeys were a necessary means
of providing their technical services to customers and that they
had to be regarded as carrying out their activity or duties during
that time. The employer determined the list of calls and
order of customers together with the appointment times. The
workers were not therefore, free to use their time as they pleased
and so were at the employer's disposal.
In reaching the conclusion the
European Court of Justice rejected representations by the UK
Government that this conclusion would lead to an inevitable
increase in costs for the employer. The European Court of
Justice pointed out that the company were free to determine the
remuneration for travel time and therefore, the method of
remuneration would be left to the relevant provisions of National
Law.
Posted on:
14/09/2015
This article is for general guidance only. It provides useful information in a concise form. Action should not be taken without obtaining specific legal advice.
Back to News articles