http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-34210002

That ones going to set the cat amongst the pigeons in the sales repping and engineer world!

Was only a matter of time before this happened IMO, clear health and safety and work/life balance issues.

Full judgement here:

http://curia.europa.eu/jcms/upload/docs/application/pdf/2015-09/cp150099en.pdf

Never worked for anywhere that didn’t count leaving the door to where you were going as work time. The one office and all else is travelling was normal

Always taken this to be the case but with an expectation that there’d be some normal commuting to a base if there was a fixed office. Last formal policy, from memory, was 40 mins / day taken as saved commuting time but everything after that was “work”.

Interesting that HMRC recently dropped the home to office deduction (time) for visiting other places other than your home office, within the last year.

Never figured out why they would do that, but this may explain?

Agree with OP though, quite a big deal as far as I understand it.

Oh and Mike, sometimes your smugness is just too much, even for here 🙂

really? I have honestly never worked for a company that doesn’t let you claim home to other workplace as working time. Is that actually happening?

Errr, yes.

Well thats shit then, not something I would sign up for

I’m a civil Engineer and whenever I go to site i treat getting there and back as work time. If i set off at 7am, and leave site about 3 i’m not going back to the office.

This affects a lot of low paid workers, eg the care industry.

They might not feel they have a choice about signing up for it.

Interesting that HMRC recently dropped the home to office deduction (time) for visiting other places other than your home office, within the last year.

Never figured out why they would do that, but this may explain?

Sensible i suppose really. If they are not prepared to have a fixed office, then all travel is additional.

Can see a lot of places nominating an ‘office’ now, even if it is 2hrs away from your home. How would that work contract wise? if you had contract with ‘home’ as your office, what would they legally be required to offer with a move of ‘office’?

Not that it applies to me, just out of interest.

Smugness alarm! Some people have to take what’s available donchaknow.

Seems like one of the few good things to come from Brussels.

really? I have honestly never worked for a company that doesn’t let you claim home to other workplace as working time. Is that actually happening?

Fairly common to count your normal (or a sensible) commute distance to an office as unpaid time. Example; i would normally pass the airport on way to office so if i were flying somewhere for work, I would not count travelling time from home to airport in my timesheet ( tho i would count the 2hrs sitting about in departures 😆 ).

Very common in care co’s not to pay for travel time between clients. It’s poor form but, a lot of companies are struggling to break even with the current squeeze of council spending. Cant see the wife’s company surviving this and the minimum wage increase coming soon

When I travelled on business, any time spent travelling was work time. I had to record it, even had a dedicated sub-code for it to show it was travel time and not productive time. Any travel that was not to my normal place of work was business travel and I was expected to claim expenses and book as travel time.

The care industry has been abusing their staff for a long time in not paying for travel to clients. Mainly because the rates of pay for care do not allow travel time to be taken into account, allow staff to be paid the minimum wage and to make a profit.

Not sure how this plays with the Gov’s Summer Budget proposal to scrap tax relief on travel to temporary places of work for contractors / agency workers working through an umbrella or own ltd company.

In the care industry it’s standard practice not to include travel time, so you end up with the real wage being below minimum wage esp in more rural areas.

The subtlety is, as mentioned in the BBC link, that the judgement is only about “working time” as in the Directive. If the lawyer quoted is correct, it applies for adding up total working time, but it doesn’t say you have to get paid for it, or what rate you get paid. It could mean people who do a lot of traveling have to cut their total hours to 48, so get fewer paid hours at minimum wage, and so be worse off. I can’t recall if it’s still legal for a worker to opt out of the Directive.

Yeah it is, my wife just opted out of it for an investment bank.

Document refers to travelling to work where there is no fixed place of work. So not normal commuting.

The HSE will be busy. Road haulage is going to find themselves paying a fortune in HSE fees once they get a foot in the door. Some lawyers are going to get very rich trying to keep the HSE out of traffic collisions for the vested interests.
Should make the roads safer for more vulnerable users.

I can’t recall if it’s still legal for a worker to opt out of the Directive.

Yes, you can

But not out of the resting hours etc. elements – so this ruling could be interesting regards its effects on, for example, doing a long drive the night before a meeting, as you need an 11 hour uninterrupted rest.