Time spent “on-call”


Working hours can include time on-call, where the employee has to remain on the employer’s premises, even if s/he is not obliged to work.


In Sindicato de Medicos v Consumo de la Generalidad [2000] IRLR 845, doctors were on-call at a health centre during their period of duty. They were not permitted to leave, although they could read, watch TV, rest or sleep. The European Court of Justice (ECJ) held that this time must be considered entirely as working time.


In a similar ruling, the ECJ held that a doctor who slept at the hospital and who rarely spent more than half of the time on-call actually working could include all of that time as working time. This meant he was entitled to compensatory periods of time off immediately following the time on-call (Landeshauptstadt v Jaeger [2003] IRLR 804). These rulings were later upheld in a further important ECJ decision, Abdelkader Dellas and others v Premier Ministre (Case C-14/04).


In 2014, the Scottish EAT ruled, in an important case supported by general union Unite, that whether someone is working or at rest when “on call” depends on whether their time when on-call is truly their own (as opposed to being under the control of the employer). It does not always depend on whether on-call workers are required to remain on the employer’s premises, or in some other specified geographical location, although control over workers’ location is an important factor:


The European Commission has been consulting for some time on changing the laws on on-call time and compensatory rest, including a year-long online public consultation from 2014-15.
The ETUC continues to argue for the favourable ECJ decisions on “on-call” time summarised above to be written directly into the Working Time Directive through an amendment of the text, to strengthen the position of workers, especially vulnerable workers who lack effective collective representation.