A recent decision by the Employment Appeal Tribunal (EAT) has clarified employers’ obligations in relation to compensatory rest.
The rules about rest breaks and time off work are set out in the Working Time Regulations 1998 (WTRs). As a general rule, most workers who work for 6 or more hours in one day are entitled to an uninterrupted break of at least 20 minutes. However, the following workers are excluded from this general rule:
- Workers in excluded sectors, such as rail, air, sea and road transport, offshore workers, junior doctors, police and emergency services and domestic servants;
- Workers with unmeasured time; and
- “Special case” workers which are set out in the WTRs.
The last category of “special cases” will include rail transport workers whose activities are “intermittent”, where they work on board trains, or where their activities are linked to transport timetables and to ensuring the continuity and regularity of traffic.
Although they will be excluded from the general rule about rest breaks, those workers that fall within any of the excluded categories above will instead be entitled to an equivalent period of compensatory rest.
Crawford v Network Rail Infrastructure Ltd
Case Details
This case considered whether an employer could fulfil its obligations under the WTRs to provide compensatory rest to a rail worker by allowing him to take shorter breaks throughout the day which, added together, would amount to more than 20 minutes.
Mr Crawford was a Relief Cover Signalman who worked from signal boxes on the railway. He was required to continually monitor the line and be on call when trains were passing through. Whilst he was permitted to take short 5 minute breaks from time to time (which together amounted to more than 20 minutes), there was no opportunity for him to be away from his workstation for a continuous 20 minute period.
As Mr Crawford fell within one of the categories excluded from the general rule he was only entitled to compensatory rest and his employer argued that there was no requirement for this to be a continuous 20 minute period. However, the EAT disagreed, deciding that in order to comply with the WTRs the compensatory rest given to Mr Crawford should have been an interrupted period of at least 20 minutes.
What does the decision mean?
In a previous decision by the Court of Appeal (Hughes v Corps of Commissionaires Management Ltd) it had been established that compensatory rest did not have to have the same characteristics as ordinary rest breaks (for example it is possible to still be “on call” whilst taking compensatory rest). This left some ambiguity as to what was required for a break to qualify as compensatory rest.
This most recent decision by the EAT confirms that compensatory rest must last for at least an uninterrupted 20 minutes. Employers with workers in the excluded categories should review their practices in relation to breaks to ensure they are complying with this as a minimum.
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