Time spent travelling to and from the first and last assignment of the day


New law was made in 2015 with a decision of the Court of Justice of the European Union (ECJ), Federacion de Servicios Privados del sindicato Comisiones obreras v Tyco Integrated Security SL [2015] EUECJ C-266/14. In this case, the ECJ ruled that for mobile workers (in that case, technicians carrying out repairs at clients’ premises), travel time to and from the first appointment of the day is likely to be “working time”. It is important to recognise that this case concerned “working time” under the Working Time Directive, rather than national minimum wage rights. There is more information under Working Time Rights on page 115. Even though the case concerns working time rights, it is expected to have significance in negotiations over pay for travel time of low-paid, mobile hourly workers whose hourly rate must not fall below the NMW once travel time is added to working hours.