A group of room attendants worked cleaning hotel rooms. The volume of work meant they could not take their full contractual rest break and they worked significant amounts of unpaid overtime. A collective agreement said that overtime was “voluntary” but that “employees may be required to work overtime at short notice and cooperation in this matter is necessary”.

There was no evidence that the employer was asking the employees to work overtime, and no detailed evidence of when, how often and for how long the employees had to work extra hours to complete their tasks. The EAT dismissed the claim. The fact that the employees had no practical choice but to work the extra hours in order to keep their jobs did not make the overtime compulsory, or “required” by the employer.

Blair & Others v Hotel Solutions London Limited UKEAT/0412/11/DM