The Court of Justice of the European Union has held that time spent by workers, who do not have a fixed or habitual place of work, on travelling each day between their homes and the premises of the first and last customers designated by their employer should be classified as ‘working time’ for the purposes of the Working Time Directive.
The ruling could have significant implications for companies that employ mobile workers, such as sales representatives, skilled technicians and care workers, who spend a lot of time travelling between appointments.
The ruling may mean that some workers could quite quickly exceed the number of working hours that they are legally allowed to work. In such cases, and to avoid breaking the law, employers may need to reduce their workers’ travelling times (perhaps by ensuring that affected workers begin and end their assignments near the worker’s own home), or even ask their workers to opt out of the Working Time Directive’s 48-hour working week.
This ruling only concerns workers who do not have a fixed place of work, so is not relevant to all workers. Certain workers will not be affected by the ruling, such as (1) workers who report to a fixed place of work before travelling on to their first assignment/destination of the day, and (2) workers who work from home but occasionally visit the office, provided that their employment contract specifies that their home is their place of work.
If you are concerned about the implications of this ruling on your business, please contact me at michael.delaney@mablaw.com.
