Two recent decisions under the EU Working Time Directive (WTD)
are of interest. The first is a UK Employment Appeal Tribunal (EAT)
decision on holiday pay and the second is an influential opinion of
the Advocate General (AG) of the European Court of Justice, which
the Court usually follows, on what counts as 'working
time'.
Voluntary overtime, standby allowances and callout charges
The UK EAT has just ruled that, under the EU WTD, voluntary
overtime pay, out of hours standby payments and call-out payments
should be included in the calculation of the 4 weeks statutory
holiday pay, provided they are sufficiently regular or
recurring.
This is the case even if there is no obligation on the employer
to provide, or the employee to do, the overtime or join the on-call
rota.
