In a recent case, Federación de Servicios de Comisiones Obreras (CCOO) v Deutsche Bank
SAE, the European Court of Justice (“ECJ”) has held that in order to
comply with the EU Working Time Directive (“the Directive”), employers must
have a reliable and objective system of measuring actual daily time that their workers have worked.
This is a decision which could have a significant practical and financial impact on employers wanting to avoid the potential for action against them by the Health and Safety Executive and so we wanted to share our views on the steps we would advise employers to take in response to the case.
The
Facts
The facts of this case were that a group action was
brought by a number of Spanish unions against Deutche Bank, claiming that it
was under an obligation to set up a system which measured working time in order
to comply with the Directive.
This arose following concerns about whether the bank
was meeting its requirements in respect of providing the minimum periods of
daily and weekly rest periods, together with ensuring that workers were not
working more than an average of 48 hours in any seven day period. Whilst Deutche
Bank had in place a computerised system that recorded absences such as holiday
and whole day sickness absences, it did not measure actual time worked or the amount of overtime worked.
The ECJ ruled that in order to ensure the effectiveness
of the rights provided by the Directive, employers must provide an
objective, reliable and accessible system which records the time worked by each
worker so that it can be measured.
The
Implications for Employers
The …Read More
