Newsflash: Working time – travel time

What do we already know?

In our June 2015 Newsletter Case update (3): Working time – travel time we updated you that Advocate General Bot in Federacion de Servicios Privados del sindicato Comisiones Obreras v Tyco had given his opinion that time spent by peripatetic workers (i.e. those with no permanent work base) travelling from home to their first job of the day and from the last job of the day back home did constitute working time for the purposes of EU law.

What’s new?

The Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) has agreed with the above opinion in its decision available here. The CJEU held that the journeys made by workers without fixed or habitual place of work between their homes and the first and last customer of the day constitute working time. This means that employers must now be careful to ensure that the travelling time of workers who do not have a permanent work base is accurately recorded. The fact that these hours must be included in determining employees’ working time may impact on whether employers are complying with working time limits contained in the UK’s Working Time Regulations.

Given the important impact of this decision for many employers we will cover this decision in more detail in our September Newsletter so watch this space…