Time on call

Working hours can include time on call, provided the employee has to remain on the employer’s premises even when not doing any work. Only “on call” hours where the worker is not required on the premises are not counted for the purpose of calculating working time. In Sindicato de Medicos v Consumo de la Generalidad Valenciana ([2000] IRLR 845), doctors on call at a health centre were not allowed to leave the premises although they could read, watch TV, eat or sleep. The ECJ held that this time was all working time. The decision was followed in Landeshauptstadt Kiel v Jaeger ([2003] IRLR 804), in which a doctor was required to remain at hospital while on call but could sleep in a hospital room, and rarely spent more than half of his on-call time working. Nevertheless, it all counted as working time. This meant that the doctor had the right to compensatory periods of time off immediately after the period he had been on call.

The principle was also applied in the UK in Anderson v Jarvis Hotels plc (EAT/0062/05). In this case, a hotel worker required to sleep over was found to be working for the whole of that time, even when he was asleep. The EAT said it was clear his employer required him to be there. He had been disciplined on one occasion for leaving the hotel for half an hour in the early hours of the morning.

The European Commission has been consulting for some time on proposals to amend the laws on on-call time and compensatory rest.