Time spent on-call



Working hours can include time on-call, where the employee has to remain on the employer’s premises, even if she or 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:


A recent ECJ case, Ville de Nivelles v Rudy Matzak (Case C-518/15), looked at whether stand-by or on-call time for retained firefighters is “working time” under the directive. In this case, a Belgian retained firefighter was required to be available for work on stand-by during evenings and weekends for one week out of every four. He had to be contactable and report to the fire station within no more than eight minutes during this time but was only paid when on active service. The court looked at whether he was required to be physically present at the place determined by the employer and available to the employer. In February 2018 it handed down its judgement, concluding: “stand-by time which a worker is required to spend at home with the duty to respond to calls from his employer within eight minutes — which very significantly restricts the opportunities to carry out other activities — must be regarded as ‘working time’”.