Health and Safety Law 2024 (October 2024)
In XR v Dopravní podnik hl. m. Prahy, akciová spolec˘nost [2022] IRLR 170, the ECJ looked at whether a firefighter’s two 30-minute daily breaks amounted to “rest periods” as the stand-by required him to be ready to respond to a call-out within two minutes. It concluded that stand-by time during which the worker is required to return to work within a few minutes must, in principle, be regarded as “working time”. In practice in these circumstances, the worker is “strongly dissuaded from planning any kind of recreational activity, even of a short duration”. Again, the ruling does not bind UK courts and tribunals because it was handed down after the end of the Brexit transition period.
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