European Court of Justice ruling on travelling time

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A European court of justice ruling yesterday could mean benefits for many of our members who have 'no fixed place of work' sometimes termed 'Mobile workers'. The ruling, which adjudicated on a Spanish firm that installs burglar alarms, declared that workers, who do not have a fixed or habitual place of work, are entitled to include the time spent travelling each day to and from their first and last customers of the day within the European Working Time Directive, which is an average of 48 hours a week, unless they choose to opt out.

Andy Kerr
Deputy general secretary Andy Kerr explains: "Currently the UK government guidelines are that time spent travelling at work does count towards the target - but travel to and from work does not. The ruling yesterday changes this as thousands of employers could be in breach of the working time regulation rules.

"As a consequence the legislation could affect thousands of our BT Openreach engineers and many other workers in telecoms and financial services that have no fixed place of work. We are therefore intending to obtain legal advice and to enter into consultation with employers where we believe our members could be affected."

It's not certain yet whether there will be an appeal, which will of course delay the CWU pursuing this issue.