The Working Time Regulations

There is a lot of evidence linking long working hours and shift work to stress. The Working Time Regulations 1998 (WTR) cover these areas. Most workers are entitled to:

• a maximum working week of not more than 48 hours, including overtime, when averaged out over a 17-week period, unless an opt-out agreement has been signed;

• a maximum of eight hours’ night work;

• a minimum daily rest period of 11 hours;

• a minimum of a day off per week, or two days per fortnight;

• a rest break of at least 20 minutes if the working day is more than six hours; and

• paid annual leave of at least 5.6 weeks.

As well as the specific obligation to provide a rest break of 20 minutes referred to above, an employer is required to ensure workers are given adequate rest breaks where the work pattern puts workers’ health and safety at risk. This could be because the work is monotonous, or the work-rate is predetermined. The length of the rest break can be amended by collective agreement.

Long hours are a major cause of stress. Some workers have opted out of the working time limit of 48 hours, but want to reverse it. The TUC has produced a model letter “opting back in” to the 48-hour week:

The requirements of the WTR are more stringent in relation to young workers (aged 15-18).

Although an employment tribunal has no power to award compensation to workers forced to work excessive hours in breach of the WTR, an employee complaining of constructive dismissal can rely on the requirement to work excessive hours as a breach of the employment contract.

In practice, employees often find it difficult to prove that excessive hours have in fact been worked. Employees struggling with their hours should be encouraged to:

• speak up, directly and via their union rep, and record all their requests for support in writing, for example, using email; and

• keep a careful record of their hours.

In Sayers v Cambridgeshire County Council [2006] EWHC 2029, the High Court rejected a stress claim based on a breach of the WTR. The claimant proved that she was working 55 hours a week and had never signed an opt-out agreement, but the court decided that no civil remedy was intended by Parliament when it drew up the Regulations.

However, in Hone v Six Continents Retail Limited [2006] IRLR 49, the Court of Appeal confirmed that even though there is no free-standing civil remedy for breach of the WTR, the fact that a worker was working more than the 48-hour maximum working week was relevant evidence in his claim for psychiatric injury resulting from work-related stress: