All this stems from a case in which the CCOO union filed an appeal against the decision of a famous gas station chain, which required that smoking and coffee breaks be included in the workday record of its staff, since it understood that all these breaks were not part of the effective working time.
Faced with these facts, the union took the company to court alleging several violations related to the implementation of the workday record in 2019, and also denounced this obligation to sign in during breaks to smoke or drink coffee, as well as that work trips were counted as a normal workday and not the total time spent on the trip, or that overtime was subject to prior authorization from a superior and not to its actual performance.
It seems that the National Court rejected the union's first appeal, and now the Social Chamber of the Supreme Court confirms this refusal. The judges understand that it is not proven that smoking or coffee breaks are part of the working day, making it therefore legal for the company we are talking about in this post to force its staff to sign in during their arrivals and departures.
The reasoning of the Superior Court is as follows: “The smoking or coffee break is not reflected in the factual account as being effective working time, so it is not necessary to consider that the registration system, in this last extreme, has violated the precept that is being innovated.”