Time Spent Travelling Is Working Time

The European Court of Justice has recently ruled that time spent by tradesmen travelling between their home and their clients, has to be regarded as working time.

In particular, the case was brought to the European Court of Justice by employees of the Spanish security company Tyco who argued that the time spent travelling from home to their first appointment should be classed as work, in accordance with the European Working Time Directive.

The European Court of Justice accepted employees' argument stating that workers without fixed offices should be paid for the journey time to and from their first and last customers. Therefore, the ruling does not affect employees daily commute to their normal work place, but only those employees who spend a lot of their time travelling (so-called mobile workers).