Since 2005, an employee had been employed in a manufacturing company, where his main tasks were carried out at the so-called CNC machine, which was the bottleneck of the production. Therefore, it was important for the company that the machine ran constantly and without any problems. The only two employees who knew how to program the machine were the employee and the supervisor. However, it was mainly the employee who did the programming while he was also responsible for operating the machine.
The great area of responsibility resulted in excessive overtime, with an average working week of 50 hours and a period of 17 weeks of 63 hours. In March 2009, the employee was incapacitated due to stress and depression. Subsequently, the employee’s condition was recognized as an industrial injury, and the employee was awarded compensation for permanent physical impairments and loss of working capacity.
Subsequently, the employee sued the employer, claiming compensation for breach of the Working Time Directive, pain and suffering, and loss of earnings.
The management should have prevented overtime
The District Court of Kolding awarded the employee compensation corresponding to four months' salary for breaching the 48-hour rule in the Danish implementation of the Working Time Directive. Compared to previous case law, this decision is at the higher end. Typically, the courts award one to two months’ salary for violation of the 48-hour rule.
In this case, the court emphasized that the excessive overtime had been going on for more than a year and that the average working week had reached 63 hours for 17 weeks.
Furthermore, the company was forced to pay compensation for pain and suffering and for loss of earnings even though the employee had controlled the number of working hours himself. According to the court, the excessive overtime had been an advantage for the company, which had known about the employee’s burdensome working conditions and had had the possibility to reorganize the employee’s work.
iuno's opinion
The case indicates that companies can be liable for compensation if management fails to react to an employee’s excessive overtime. This applies both to hinder breaches of the 48-hour rule and to hinder breaches of other working-hour regulations.
iuno recommends that companies be aware of employees’ overtime to ensure a good and healthy working environment. This can either be achieved through workplace valuation or running appraisal interviews.
In addition, iuno recommends that companies ensure that their policies and terms regarding working time and overtime are in accordance with the law. At the same time, it is a good idea to have a plan for reducing the amount of overtime in case it exceeds the limits.
[Judgement given by the District Court of Kolding on 27 June 2014]