Following a new ruling by the European Courts to say that the time spent by workers who do not have a fixed place of work should class their travelling time to and from sites as ‘working time’ there has been a lot of confusion as to how this will affect staff and companies alike.

The confusion is particularly focused towards – will this have to be paid in addition to the workers current salary?? This has obviously left companies wondering where the funds for this additional cost will come from.

A number of HVAC companies I have spoken with since hearing about this have been worried as to how this additional cost will be funded IF this time has to be paid as they tender for business without this cost. Some of the smaller companies have been worried as they simply do not have the funds for this extra cost.

On the other side of the debate a lot of engineers I have been speaking with have been under the impression that they are due a significant increase in pay as ALL jobs that DO NOT have a fixed place of work will now have to be paid for their travel time.

The following article from the Recruitment Employment Confederation should help shed some light on this:

If you have any questions on this subject or would like to speak to John regarding the recruitment of HVAC staff, at any level, please get in touch on 0113 234 6047 or john.cassidy@calibresearch.co.uk


'ECJ rules that travelling time is 'working time' for workers with no fixed place of work'

The ECJ has responded to a request for a preliminary ruling by a Spanish Court as to whether the time spent by workers who do not have a fixed or habitual place of work, travelling between their homes and the premises of the first and last customer designated by their employer constitutes 'working time' within the meaning of the EU Working Time Directive (No.2003/88).

The ECJ has ruled that it does.

The case involves a group of workers who are engaged by Tyco Integrated Security (Tyco) to install and maintain security systems at the homes and commercial premises of Tyco's clients.

The workers each have a company vehicle which they use to travel from their home to the client locations and to travel home at the end of the day. Previously workers had to travel to a regional office to collect both the vehicle and their instructions for client visits. At that time, Tyco regarded the time spent from the point they collected the vehicle as working time, until they returned their vehicle.

On closure of the regional offices the operation was rearranged with the result that workers retained the company vehicle at home and received their instructions the evening before each working day. Tyco then switched to treating the time the workers spent travelling from home to their first client and from the last client NOT as working time, regarding it instead as a rest period. Working time commenced from the point at which the workers arrived at the first client's premises and ended when the worker left the last client's premises.

The ECJ regarded the workers as being entirely at Tyco's disposal and not free to use their time freely while travelling to and from clients.

The ECJ decision follows and earlier opinion given by the Advocate General in June 2015 who also reached the same conclusion. At that time, the UK and Spanish governments objected on the basis that this would lead to additional costs for employers.

The judgment refers to these objections, but asserts that the travelling time must nevertheless be treated as working time, but that being the case, Tyco remained free to determine how their workers should be remunerated during this period. The Working Time Directive does not deal with payments that workers should receive for working time, so this does not directly affect payment to workers. However, the case will impact on the impact of rest breaks and rest periods that workers are entitled to.

The Working Time Directive deals specifically with working time provisions such as entitlement to rest breaks, rest periods. It does not deal with pay. So, this will not affect the manner in which National Minimum Wage (NMW) is calculated because the NMW legislation uses different criteria to determine what time workers are entitled to be paid for an is entirely domestic legislation (unaffected by the decision of the ECJ). There will however be a cost element for employers because for the specific category of employees that this judgment applies to, their working day will be longer and there will be a need to make arrangements to cover extra rest breaks, rest periods.