General Advocate Giovanni Pitruzzella proposes to the Court of Justice to declare the obligation to implement a system for calculating the effective working hours of full-time workers
In its conclusions presented on 31 January 2019, it highlights the need to allow full and effective recognition of the labour rights included in the Charter and in Directive 2003/88, relating to the limitation of maximum working hours and to daily and weekly rest periods.
Although it admits that Member States are free to establish the form of recording working time that they consider appropriate, it opposes national legislation that does not establish this obligation in order to ensure that Union law has useful effects.
All these conclusions are the result of the collective dispute claim filed by Workers' Commissions (CCOO) before the National Court against Deutsche Bank SAE, with the aim of declaring the obligation of this entity to implement a system of recording the actual working hours of its staff.
Obligation of a working day registration system
In his Opinion submitted on 31/01/2019, Advocate General Giovanni Pitruzzella proposes that the Court of Justice of the European Union declare that the Charter and Directive 2003/8 (link in Spanish) impose on companies the obligation to implement a system for calculating the working hours of workers (all, including full-time workers). He considers that without a system for recording working hours there is no guarantee that the time limits established by European Union legislation are effectively respected and, consequently, the rights conferred on workers by the Directive cannot be guaranteed.
Furthermore, he indicates that the absence of a system for recording working hours makes it much more difficult for workers to obtain judicial protection for their rights, since they are deprived of a first essential piece of evidence.
In summary, in the opinion of the Advocate General, it is an obligation on the part of the employer to control the daily working time of its employees, in order to guarantee the duration of the working day, the daily rest, the limits of the duration of the working week, the weekly rest and overtime.
These obligations make sense, not only with the rights of the worker and his representatives to be able to periodically control the amount of work carried out for remunerative purposes, but above all with the protection of health and safety in the workplace.
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