Time Travelling To And From Work Can Count As Working Time

In the case of Federacion de Servicios Privados del sindicato Comisiones Obreras –v – Tyco, the Advocate General has held that, where an employee has no fixed or habitual place of work, time spent travelling from home to the first place of work of the day and from the last place of work of the day to home should be counted as working time for purposes of the EU Working Time Directive.

Background

The employees in this case installed and maintained security alarm systems. They had no fixed place of work. They were provided with a company vehicle and allocated to a particular region. On each working day, the employees travelled to jobs at customers’ premises allocated by the employer. At least once a week, the employees would travel to a logistics centre to collect parts needed for their work.