Working time may include travel to and from work

In 2011, a Spanish company closed its regional offices and affiliated all employees to the central office in Madrid. Hence, several employees, including a number of technicians who installed and maintained security systems all over the country, no longer had a fixed workplace. Instead, the workers were directed each day to their client assignments via an application on their work mobile phones. The locations of their client assignments differed daily.

The Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) was to decide whether travel time between home and clients should be calculated in the daily working hours. According to CJEU, working time is the period in which workers are at the employer’s disposal and are carrying out his duties.

The technicians found that they were at the employer’s disposal during travel time, which the company did not agree on.

Travel time was working time

CJEU stated that the technicians’ travel time between home and work was to be included in the daily working hours.

The court emphasized the necessity of travel time for the workers to carry out their duties. As the customers were located all over the country, the technicians could not decide the distance to the workplace.

Furthermore, the court attached importance to the fact that the technicians were subjects to the company’s directions and instructions during transportation. Consequently, the technicians should be considered as being at work during travel time to and from the first and the last client.

It was of no importance that the working day started and ended at the technicians’ home addresses. The court weighted that transportation between home and clients was an integral part of being a worker for workers with no fixed or habitual workplace. Therefore, the workplace could not be reduced to the clients’ addresses.

A maximum weekly working time of 48 hours

The ruling is relevant to the working time directive, which, inter alia, aims to ensure that workers obtain the required rest periods and do not work more than 48 hours on average per week.

The working time directive is implemented in Danish law by the working time act. Hence, CJEU’s ruling is a guideline in relation to the interpretation of the Danish regulations on this area.

IUNO’s opinion

In the light of the CJEU ruling, IUNO recommends companies to go through their working time policies and their time recording systems to make sure, in which situations travel time is included in the calculation of daily working time.

It is the companies’ own risk to ensure that they have the necessary controlling devices to ensure that the workers' time records are correct. If the companies close the workers’ fixed working places, it is the companies’ responsibility to bear the costs of the controlling devices.

[Case C-266/14, The Court of Justice of the European Union, 10 September 2015]