Working time reminder

Working time is forever in the news

It’s fair to say that working time is forever in the news, whether it be how to treat travel time or sleeping in shifts.

The case of Federación de Servicios de Comisiones Obreras (CCOO) v Deutsche Bank SAE. strips back working time to its basic provision and asks the question of whether an employer has to keep records of hours worked to ensure its compliance under the working time regulations.

The Spanish trade union, CCOO brought a case against Deutsche Bankas as the bank were not recording the actual hours each day that staff worked.

CCOO claimed this was in breach of the WT directive.

The CJEU agreed that yes, employers must record the hours that staff work each day as otherwise how could they prove “objectively and reliably either the number of hours worked or when that work was done”.

This decision demonstrates that to correctly interpret the working time directive into law, records of hours worked must be kept.

Unfortunately, therefore, the UK working time regulations don’t properly account for this and this will be something that the UK Government will need to address.

In the meantime, make sure you keep adequate records of hours worked.