Working Time Directive Legal Requirements

Meal Hours Regu­la­ti­ons Meal times are not com­pen­sable hours of work. More for­mal enforce­ment respon­si­bi­li­ties are divi­ded bet­ween HSE, the Civil Avia­ti­on Aut­ho­ri­ty (CAA), the Dri­ving and Vehic­le Stan­dards Agen­cy (DVSA), the Mari­ti­me and Coast Guard Agency‘s (MCA) Office for Nuclear Regu­la­ti­on (ONR) and the Office of Rail and Road (ORR). Cont­act details for the­se and other orga­niza­ti­ons can be found by cli­cking on the links below. One of the most important are­as of EU labour law is that of working con­di­ti­ons. The­se include pro­vi­si­ons on working time, part-time and fixed-term con­tracts, tem­po­ra­ry agen­cy workers and the pos­ting of workers. All the­se are­as are essen­ti­al to ensu­re a high level of employ­ment and social pro­tec­tion across the EU. Working time in the United King­dom is gover­ned by the Working Time Regu­la­ti­ons 1998. The­se limit the working week to an avera­ge of 48 hours (alt­hough the­re is an opt-out) and the working day to an avera­ge of 8 hours. They also give workers and employees the right to paid holi­days and cer­tain breaks. Here you will find resour­ces with basics, ques­ti­ons and ans­wers on spe­ci­fic topics and rele­vant case law. The­re is also a sepa­ra­te set of ques­ti­ons and ans­wers on the manage­ment of reser­vist lea­ve in the armed forces. Weekly working time is limi­t­ed by laws, regu­la­ti­ons or admi­nis­tra­ti­ve pro­vi­si­ons or by coll­ec­ti­ve agree­ments or agree­ments bet­ween the two sides of industry.

The avera­ge hours of work for each seven-day peri­od, inclu­ding over­ti­me, shall not exceed 48 hours. Artic­le 6 of the Working Time Direc­ti­ve. The Working Time Direc­ti­ve (JMT) is EU legis­la­ti­on that obli­ges EU Mem­ber Sta­tes to gua­ran­tee cer­tain rights to workers. It sets out requi­re­ments for work sche­du­les, breaks and annu­al lea­ve to pro­mo­te the health and safe­ty of workers. Accor­ding to the JMT, employ­ers are requi­red to set up an objec­ti­ve, relia­ble and acces­si­ble sys­tem to mea­su­re the dura­ti­on of each employee‘s dai­ly working time. Dero­ga­ti­on rela­ting to a spe­ci­fic cate­go­ry of workers or sec­tors Mem­ber Sta­tes may dero­ga­te from the rules on maxi­mum weekly working time, mini­mum dai­ly rest, breaks, mini­mum weekly rest and night work. The inves­ti­ga­ti­on recent­ly focu­sed on non-pay­ment of over­ti­me pay, and infor­ma­ti­on released by the Minis­try of Health, Labor and Wel­fa­re shows that unpaid over­ti­me of at least 1 mil­li­on yen was paid by 1,417 com­pa­nies (tota­ling 12.3 bil­li­on) in fis­cal year 2013. Regu­la­ti­on of rest peri­ods Distin­gu­is­hes rest peri­ods of 5 to 20 minu­tes from com­pen­sable wai­ting peri­ods or on-call time, all of which are paid hours of work. Fede­ral law does not requi­re lun­ches or cof­fee breaks. Howe­ver, if employ­ers offer short breaks (usual­ly about 5 to 20 minu­tes), fede­ral law con­siders the breaks to be com­pen­sable hours work­ed, which would be included in the sum of hours work­ed during the work week and taken into account in deter­mi­ning whe­ther over­ti­me was work­ed. Unaut­ho­ri­zed exten­si­ons of aut­ho­ri­zed breaks must not be coun­ted as hours work­ed if the employ­er has express­ly and unequi­vo­cal­ly infor­med the worker that the aut­ho­ri­zed break can only last for a cer­tain dura­ti­on, that any exten­si­on of the break is con­tra­ry to the employer‘s rules and that any exten­si­on of the break will be sanc­tion­ed. 4.5.3 “Employer‘s obli­ga­ti­on to deter­mi­ne and cal­cu­la­te working time” The Act respec­ting labour stan­dards con­ta­ins pro­vi­si­ons on hours of work, sta­tu­to­ry holi­days, night over­ti­me and other con­di­ti­ons of employment.

Employ­ers are the­r­e­fo­re requi­red to deter­mi­ne and con­trol working hours cor­rect­ly. Meal times (usual­ly at least 30 minu­tes) have a dif­fe­rent pur­po­se than cof­fee or snack breaks and are the­r­e­fo­re not working time and can­not be com­pen­sa­ted. 4.5.4 Over­ti­me pay Com­pa­nies must pay a pre­mi­um rate of pay to employees who exceed legal working hours, work on sta­tu­to­ry holi­days or work late at night (bet­ween 22:00 and 05:00), as shown in the table below. This sec­tion deals with Japan‘s labour laws and regu­la­ti­ons. Topics include recruit­ment, employ­ment con­tracts, wages, working hours, labor rules, occu­pa­tio­nal safe­ty, hygie­ne requi­re­ments, resi­gna­ti­on and dis­mis­sal pro­ce­du­res, and Japan‘s social secu­ri­ty, health, and pen­si­on sys­tems. 4.5.6 Chan­ge in the working time sys­tem Some jobs invol­ve signi­fi­cant ups and downs in the num­ber of hours work­ed depen­ding on the year, month or week. In some of the­se cases, com­pa­nies are allo­wed to intro­du­ce a working time cal­cu­la­ti­on sys­tem wher­eby the com­pa­ny does not have to pay increased rates on cer­tain weeks or days, even if employees exceed the legal working hours, pro­vi­ded that the workers con­cer­ned do not work on avera­ge lon­ger than the working time pre­scri­bed by law within a pre­de­ter­mi­ned peri­od. In this case, howe­ver, an OSH agree­ment must be con­cluded or appro­pria­te pro­vi­si­ons must be included in the labour rules befo­re a fle­xi­ble sys­tem can be introduced.

Part-time workers are entit­led to paid annu­al lea­ve in pro­por­ti­on to the num­ber of pre­scri­bed working days they work. Labor stan­dards inspec­tors are public employees who, under Japan‘s labor stan­dards legis­la­ti­on, are respon­si­ble for ente­ring any type of com­mer­cial faci­li­ty to ensu­re regu­la­to­ry com­pli­ance and help impro­ve working con­di­ti­ons. 4.5.7 Free working time regime If employees work out­side enter­pri­ses or if the pro­gress of work is signi­fi­cant­ly left to employees, an ordi­na­ry method of cal­cu­la­ting working time may not be appro­pria­te. In this case, the­re is a “dee­med hours of work sys­tem”, under which it is assu­med that employees have work­ed for a cer­tain peri­od of time.