Time spent travelling to and from appointments can be 'working time'

The European Court of Justice (ECJ) has recently ruled that time spent travelling to and from first and last appointments by workers without a fixed office should be regarded as 'working time'.  For some workers this is an important decision because such travel had not formerly been regarded as work.

The basis of the judgement is that the ECJ was considering health and safety issues in the context of the working time directive. The directive is to try to avoid exploitation of workers and deals with such issues as: hours, breaks and holiday entitlement.

The significance of the decision is that if an employee now has, say, an extra ten hours per week of time treated as 'working time', this could mean that across a week, their employer is actually paying that employee less than the national minimum wage per hour.

The ruling will not affect all employees. Those who may travel long hours to work, but are travelling to a fixed work place, will not be affected.

The judgment is most likely to affect people in such roles as care workers, door to door salesmen and those providing services such as plumbers and electricians.

If you think that you may be affected by this decision, or have any other employment related concern, contact us.