Now EU wants firms to pay staff from moment they leave their house: British companies expected to be hit by changes to rules
- Trade unions last night demanded workers paid for travelling time
- Around 900,000 British workers could be affected by the judgment
- Experts say could ruling will have ‘significant implications’ for firms that hire mobile workers
Time
spent by care workers, gas fitters and salesmen travelling to customers’
homes should be counted in their working hours, an EU court ruled
yesterday.
Thousands
of British employers could find they are now breaking rules on how many
hours their staff work following the judgment by the European Court of
Justice.
Trade unions last night demanded workers without a fixed office now be paid for the time.
In
the case, brought under the controversial Working Time Directive, two
engineers who work for a Spanish firm installing and maintaining burglar
alarms appealed over how their working hours were calculated.
Time spent by care workers, gas
fitters and salesmen travelling to customers’ homes should be counted in
their working hours, an EU court ruled yesterday
The
court in Luxembourg agreed with the men that their travelling time
between home and their first and last customers of the day should be
classed as working hours.
‘Excluding
those journeys from working time would be contrary to the [directive’s]
objective of protecting the safety and health of workers,’ the judgment
said.
Under
the EU health and safety rules, employees can only be required to work a
maximum of 48 hours per week and are entitled to a minimum of 11 hours
rest between working days.
Around
900,000 British workers could be affected by the judgment, which does
not include the self-employed, who are not covered by the Working Time
Directive.
Christopher
Tutton, of employment law firm Irwin Mitchell, said the ruling could
have ‘significant implications’ for companies that employ mobile
workers.
He
said: ‘Many UK companies do not consider travel time outside normal
working hours as working time, but now that the ECJ has said that it
should, thousands of companies may need to make changes.
‘If
they don’t, employees could quickly exceed the number of working hours
that they are legally allowed to work and bosses could therefore soon
find that they are operating illegally and at risk of facing costly
claims against them.’
Under minimum wage rules, travel time at the beginning and the end of the day is not included, but this may have to change.
Mr
Tutton warned that the unions could put pressure on the Government to
amend the rules. He added: ‘If employers are required to pay for this,
it could dramatically increase the payroll costs of businesses who
employ low paid staff.’
Dave
Prentis, general secretary of trade union Unison, last night used the
decision to call for home care workers to be paid for their time
travelling to and from their first and last visits each shift.
Thousands of British employers could
find they are now breaking rules on how many hours their staff work
following the judgment by the European Court of Justice
‘This case rightly demonstrates that mobile workers must be paid for all their working time,’ he said.
Britain
currently has a special provision under the Working Time Directive that
means workers can individually opt out of the rules and therefore work
more than 48 hours a week.
Earlier
this week, Europe minister David Lidington said protecting this
opt-out, which is permanently under review in Brussels, was a key part
of David Cameron’s re-negotiation of Britain’s EU membership.
He
said: ‘Our priorities are to retain the individual’s right to opt-out
of the 48-hour limit in weekly working time and to address problems
caused by European court judgments on on-call time, compensatory rest
and holiday pay.’
British MEPs last night warned the ruling would put ‘shackles’ on employers and workers.
Anthea
McIntyre, the Tory employment spokesman in the European Parliament,
said: ‘This should ring alarm bells. The way travel-to-work time is
dealt with should be a matter purely between employer and employee.
‘Potentially this could add significantly to the costs of businesses and interfere with long-established business practices.’
Ukip’s
small business spokesman Margot Parker said: ‘Anything the EU does that
adds more red tape to small business simply just holds them back. It
stifles innovation and entrepreneurship and they should just simply stay
out of legislation for small business.’
A British Government spokesman said last night: ‘We are carefully considering the implications of this judgment.’
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