Travelling to work 'is work', European court rules

[unisafeoff]

Just picked this up in the news today
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-34210002" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[bernicarey]

The ruling came about because of an ongoing legal case involving a Spanish company called Tyco, which installs security systems.

The company shut its regional offices down in 2011, resulting in employees travelling varying distances before arriving at their first appointment.

The court ruling said: "The fact that the workers begin and finish the journeys at their homes stems directly from the decision of their employer to abolish the regional offices and not from the desire of the workers themselves.

"Requiring them to bear the burden of their employer's choice would be contrary to the objective of protecting the safety and health of workers pursued by the directive, which includes the necessity of guaranteeing workers a minimum rest period."

Ruling makes sense.
If you're being made to work 'from home' then travelling to/from appointments is part of your working day.

Anything else is somewhat extracting the urine by the Employer, with the potential to send you 3 hours each way for an appointment and only pay you the 2 hours you're there for?

[quality_somerset]

Will be interesting what effect the ruling will have on the "home help" care sector, many of whom travel to clients from their home, and who are not paid for travelling.

Employers can and will extract the urine where possible...

[Steve M]

This has been the case in the UK for years according to HMRC, its about time Europe caught up with us.

I work from home, there is no way my company would expect me to pay to travel to my first site, it could be anywhere in the UK, travel time is all in my days work.

Care worker agencies know its work travel but do not pay it because they can get away with it, the workers can get tax relief.