Employment case update

Do you employ mobile workers who have no fixed place of work who travel from home to clients or customer addresses to perform a service?

The Court of Justice of the European Union recently ruled that in the case of mobile workers, time spent travelling from home to their first job should be regarded as “working time” for the purposes of the Working Time Directive (Federacion de Servicios Privados del sindicato Comisiones obreras v Tyco Integrated Security SL)

Do you employ mobile workers who have no fixed place of work who travel from home to clients or customer addresses to perform a service? If so, this European Union ruling is likely to have a big impact on your company as UK courts are obliged to interpret the Working Time Regulations 1998 in a way which is consistent with the European Union law.

In this particular case, Tyco employed technicians who installed and maintained security equipment at customers’ premises in Spain. The company provided the technicians with a company vehicle and these technicians travelled from their own homes to locations instructed. Importantly, they were not usually required to travel to an office or central location save to occasionally collect tools or equipment. The employer, Tyco, argued that this travelling time was a rest period as the technicians weren’t “working”. They were employed to carry out installations or maintenance and during these periods of travel, they were obviously not doing so. The court disagreed stating that this argument would “distort ... and jeopardise the objective of protecting the safety and health of workers” and that the travelling time was working time.

It’s interesting to note that Tyco had also used the argument that because technicians were free to make their own decisions as to their route and itinerary during the travelling time, those factors took them outside the boundaries of the legislation. The Court again did not heed that argument. They referred to the fact technicians were not able to use travelling time for their own interests and that they were accordingly “at the disposal” of the employer.

Please call our Employment Law team on 020 8290 0440 to discuss how this decision may affect your business and what you should do about it