Travel time to be counted as working time, rules European Court of Justice

LONDON: A landmark judgement by the European Court of Justice (ECJ) which also binds Britain has said that a time a person takes to travel to reach work every morning and return home at the end of day will have to be counted as working time under the law.
Till now, the time employees clocked into the office and left it physically was considered the official time they devoted to work.
The ruling revolves around a legal case in Spain involving Tyco, a security systems company which involves installing and maintaining antitheft security systems.
In 2011 Tyco closed its offices in the provinces and assigned all its employees to the central office in Madrid.
In some cases now, workers have to drive over three hours covering 100 kilometres to reach their client’s homes. Tyco counts the time spent travelling between home and customers not as working time, but as a rest period.
ECJ ruled that workers without a fixed office should be able to charge for the time such journeys last.
The Court said it “considers workers in such a situation to be carrying out their activity or duties over the whole duration of those journeys. The journeys of the workers to the customers their employer designates is a necessary means of providing their technical services at the premises of those customers. Not taking those journeys into account would enable Tyco to claim that only the time spent carrying out the activity of installing and maintaining the security systems falls within the concept of working time, which would distort that concept and jeopardise the objective of protecting the safety and health of workers”.
“During those journeys, the workers act on the instructions of the employer, who may change the order of the customers or cancel or add an appointment. During the necessary travelling time – which generally cannot be shortened – the workers are therefore not able to use their time freely and pursue their own interests”.
ECJ added that the fact that the workers are informed of what route to follow and what particular work must be done for the customers, via mobile phone, a few hours before their appointment means that those workers are no longer able to choose to adjust their private life and their place of residence in relation to its proximity to their place of work, since that place varies daily.
“The time spent travelling between home and customers cannot therefore be regarded as a rest period,” the Court ordered.