Brussels, 12/06/2015 (Agence Europe) - For people required to travel in the course of their work, working time should include the time it takes to travel to meet a client, no matter at what time during the working day, said Advocate General Yves Bot, presenting his opinion to the Court of Justice on Thursday 11 June.
Case C-266/14 involves the Tyco Integrated group which installs and maintains security systems in clients' premises throughout Spain. Since the closure of its regional offices in 2011, employees of the group have had company cars available to them for work-related travel, which may involve journeys of over 100 kilometres and, depending on traffic, take more than three hours. Their working day is calculated from the time of their arrival at their first client until their departure from the premises of their last client. Can travelling time be considered as a rest period? That was the question put to the Court.
This way of calculating working time quite simply does not seem to be legal, within the meaning of Directive 2003/88/EC on certain aspects of the organisation of working time, says the Advocate General. People required to travel in the course of their work do not have a set or usual workplace, so the journeys they make in carrying out their jobs and which they are asked to make by their employers are necessary in order to be able to carry out their work at clients' premises. These workers, then, should be considered to be working when they take any form of transport at the start and at the end of the working day to travel between their homes and the premises of their first client and back again after seeing their last client. (Jan Kordys)