Court rules that standby time can be working time

In a significant new judgement (Matzak, C-519/15), the European Court of Justice (ECJ) has ruled that standby time away from the workplace may be counted as working time. In previous rulings the ECJ has said that on-call time at work should be counted as working time but normally if a worker is on standby away from the workplace this would not count as working time as they are not at the disposal of the employer. In the Matzak case involving a Belgian firefighter the Court found that the requirement to be at the workplace within eight minutes imposed a restriction on how the worker spent his time and therefore should be counted as working time.

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2018 February epsucob@NEWS 04

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