EAT WORKING TIME REGULATIONS
The Claimant/Appellant was a railway signalman working on single manned boxes on eight-hour shifts. He had no rostered breaks but was expected to take breaks when there were naturally occurring breaks in work whilst remaining ‘on call’. Although none of the individual breaks lasted 20 minutes, in aggregate they lasted substantially more than 20 minutes.
He claimed that he was entitled to a 20 minute ‘rest break’ under regulation 12 of the Working Time Regulations 1998 or ‘compensatory rest’ under regulation 24(a). The Employment Tribunal found that regulation 12 did not apply and that the arrangements were compliant with regulation 24(a).
He appealed on the basis that ‘an equivalent period of compensatory rest’ must comprise one period lasting at least 20 minutes. The appeal succeeded in the light of Hughes v The Corps of Commissionaires Management Ltd [2011] EWCA Civ 1061 (in particular the judgment of Elias LJ at paragraph 54).
Citations:
[2017] UKEAT 0316 – 16 – 0811
Links:
Jurisdiction:
England and Wales
Employment
Updated: 03 April 2022; Ref: scu.603715