Rest

Daily rest

Adult workers are entitled to at least 11 consecutive hours, and young workers (16- and 17-year-olds) to at least 12 consecutive hours, as a rest period in each 24-hour period (Regulation 10).

Weekly rest

Adult workers are entitled to an uninterrupted rest period of at least 24 hours in each seven-day period (Regulation 11). The employer can decide whether this is taken as two uninterrupted periods of at least 24 hours, or one uninterrupted rest period of at least 48 hours in each 14-day period (Regulation 11(2)). Young workers are entitled to at least 48 hours in each seven-day period (Regulation 11(3)).

Rest breaks

Workers are entitled to a rest break where they work more than six hours in a day (Regulation 12). This must be an uninterrupted period of at least 20 minutes away from any workstation. An EAT has held that there is no statutory right to a second 20-minute break after 12 hours’ work (The Corps of Commissionaires Management v Hughes UKEAT/0196/08/CEA). The break must be taken during, rather than at the start or end of, the working time.

Young workers are entitled to a rest break of at least 30 minutes, which should be consecutive if possible, where the daily working time is more than four-and-a-half hours.

Where the pattern of work is such as to put the health and safety of workers at risk, particularly if the work is monotonous or the work rate is predetermined, the employer must ensure that workers get adequate rest breaks (Regulation 8). In these circumstances, employers should give more regular breaks than the minimum required by law. There are additional rules about rest breaks for display screen (VDU) users (see Chapter 7, Work equipment).

In Carter v Prestige Nursing Limited UKEAT/0014/12/ZT, the EAT reached the surprising conclusion that there can be no breach of the statutory duty to provide daily or weekly rest or rest breaks under the Working Time Regulations unless the worker has attempted to exercise those rights, for example by lodging a grievance about the employer’s failure to allow rest breaks and the employer has refused to allow the rights to be exercised. The case followed an earlier decision — Miles v Linkage Community Trust [2008] IRLR 602. In Miles, a new shift pattern imposed by the employer meant that the claimant could no longer take his statutory rest break. In his tribunal claim, he was only allowed to pursue compensation for breaks denied him after lodging his grievance complaining about the practice, and not for the earlier period after the shift change was imposed.

In the Carter case, the claimant, a live-in carer, lost her claim for failure to provide rest breaks because she could not show that she had actively asked to take breaks and been turned down. This conclusion rests on wording in Regulation 30 which provides a remedy where the employer has “refused to permit” the worker to exercise the right. This unfortunate interpretation defeats the aim of the Working Time Directive, which is to ensure employers provide adequate rest for their workers.

Shift workers

The regulations on daily and weekly rest periods do not apply to shift workers when they change shifts and cannot take the rest periods between the end of one shift and the start of the next one. Similarly, they do not apply to workers whose work is split up over the day, such as cleaners. But in both cases, they are entitled to compensatory rest.

Compensatory rest

Where workers lose out on their rest periods, for example, because they are moving between shifts, their rest break is excluded as a “special case”, or their rest breaks have been modified due to collective or workforce agreements, they must be given an equivalent period of compensatory rest. Government guidance suggests that this should be taken “reasonably soon after the time you missed”. In exceptional cases where this is not possible, the employer must give the worker appropriate protection to safeguard health and safety. At European level, unions continue to campaign for tighter regulation of compensatory rest, with clearer rules to prevent any delay in being allowed to take the rest.

In Alpha Catering Services v Gallagher [2005] IRLR 102, the Court of Appeal held that the focus, in relation to the rules on compensatory rest, is on the activities of the worker, not of the employer. Employers cannot, for example, under-staff to avoid giving workers the right to breaks.

In the case of seafarers, where there are separate regulations, short breaks are included within the definition of working hours (P&O Ferries (Bermuda) v Spencer UKEAT/0433/04).

The Employment Appeal Tribunal (EAT) ruled that a health and safety rep and shop steward at Cheshire-based glass container manufacturers Encirc were “at work” for the purposes of the Working Time Regulations when they were attending health and safety and trade union meetings. The case, Edwards & Anor v Encirc Ltd (Working Time Regulations) [2015] UKEAT 0367_14_2302 (23 February 2015), involved two general Unite union reps.

The meetings they attended took place late in the afternoon, meaning they only had six and nine hours respectively between the end of the meetings and the beginning of their night shifts. They argued that under Regulation 10(1) of the Working Time Regulations 1998 they should have been given 11 hours rest between carrying out their functions as union reps, i.e. attending the meetings, and beginning their shifts.

The employer argued that the meetings were not in “working time”. And although the employment tribunal found that the reps were “working” during the meetings, the EAT said that it had adopted a too narrow approach in deciding whether they were also “at the employer’s disposal” and “carrying out his activities or duties”.

It said that a wider approach was allowed, which could take into account activities that were for the benefit of the employer in a broader sense, such as attending a trade union or health and safety meeting. The two reps’ claim was referred back to the tribunal for reconsideration.