WTR record keeping

[ch 4: page 140]

Under the WTR, employers must keep records:

• of the names of workers who have opted out of the 48-hour week, with a copy of their opt out agreement;

• to ensure young workers’ working time (with a few exceptions) does not exceed eight hours a day or 40 hours a week and that no young worker works between 10am and 6pm (or between 11pm and 7am if the contract requires them to work after 10pm);

• to ensure nightworkers’ normal hours do not exceed the eight-hour limit; and

• to ensure nightworkers and young workers are offered free health assessments.

Records must be kept for each worker for two years. Employers should also keep records of pregnancy and breastfeeding risk assessments.

The ECJ has ruled that EU member states must impose a legal duty on employers to keep records of individual workers’ actual working time, since without an accurate record, working time rights become “meaningless” (Federacion de Servicios de Comisiones Obreras (CCOO) v Deutsche Bank SAE [2019] Case C-55/18). However, this important ruling is likely to be of limited practical help to UK workers, even though it was handed down before the end of the Brexit transition period. The current UK government is unlikely to change the law to impose this kind of recording duty on UK employers.