EU Court of Justice - The tracking of the time worked each day

The EU Court of Justice obliges employers to set up a system enabling the tracking of the time worked each day (Sentence Cause C-55/18).

A Spanish Trade Union brought an action against a very important Bank for a judgment declaring that it has the obligation to set up a system for recording the time worked each day by its members of staff.

According to the Union such system would make it possible to verify the compliance with the stipulated working times and the obligation, laid down in national law, to provide union representatives with information on overtime worked each month. Spanish law, as a matter of fact, guarantees neither the respect of the Working Time Directive nor the respect of the Safety and Health of workers at work Directive.[1]

This matter was discussed before the UE Court of Justice. The Court declares that those directives, read in the light of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union (‘the Charter’), preclude a national law that, according to the interpretation given to it in national case-law, does not require to the employers to set up a system enabling the tracking of the time worked on a daily basis by each worker.

The Court holds that, in the absence of a system enabling the duration of time worked each day by each worker to be measured, it is not possible to determine, objectively and reliably, either the number of hours worked and when that work was done, or the number of hours of overtime worked, which makes it excessively difficult, if not impossible in practice, for workers to be ensured on the respect of their rights. Therefore the Court considers that a national law which does not provide for an obligation to have recourse to an instrument that enables that determination does not guarantee the effectiveness of the rights conferred by the Charter and the Working Time Directive, as it deprives both employers and workers of the possibility of verifying if those rights are respected.

Such law could also compromise the directive’s objective of ensuring better protection of the safety and health of workers.

In order to ensure the effectiveness of the rights provided for in the Working Time Directive and the Charter, the Member States must require employers to set up an objective, reliable and accessible system enabling the check on the working time each day by each worker to be measured.

It is up on the Member States to define the specific arrangements for implementing such system, particularly the form that it must take, having regard, as necessary, to the particular characteristics of each sector of activity concerned, and of the specific characteristics, of certain undertakings concerning their size.


[1] Directive 2003/88/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 4November 2003 concerning certain aspects of the organization of working time and Council Directive 89/391/EEC of 12 June 1989 on the introduction of measures to encourage improvements in the safety and health of workers at work.