How are debts owed to family members dealt with in divorce proceedings?
The first question for the court to determine is whether the debts are legitimate, and this is a...
A leading Midlands employment lawyer has urged employers not to panic about the recent European Court of Justice decision that time spent travelling by mobile workers between their home and customer’s premises is considered working time.
Tim Lang, head of the employment team at George Green LLP, said “ The case ,which involved a Spanish security installation company, related to workers who did not have a fixed or habitual place of work. Travel was held to be working time because workers were carrying out their duties or activities and were at the employer’s disposal. The impact of the case on employers, however, is likely to be less significant than some parts of the media were leading people to believe.”
Mr Lang continued “The travel time of mobile workers has to be taken into account when calculating hours for the purpose of the 48 hours working week and rest breaks. However, the reality is that most workers will have opted out of the 48 hour working time limit in any event. Also, most employees’ contracts of employment will provide that workers are not entitled to be paid for the first and last journeys to and from customers’ premises. The ECJ noted that employers were free to determine the rate of pay for travelling time and that what workers are paid for travelling time is a matter for the national law of member states. Under the National Minimum Wage Regulations, travel from the worker’s home to their place of work or assignment does not qualify for the National Minimum Wage”
He concluded “ Although employers with mobile workers should be auditing their workforce to ensure that these points are covered in employment contracts, the likelihood is that it will not have any great impact on the majority of those employers and they should not panic about the case ”