Working time

Q: A hotel porter who works a 10-hour shift has been told that he will still have to work during his half-hour break if needed. Does this breach the working time regulations?

A: It sounds as if it does. The Working Time Regulations 1998 give a worker the right to a minimum rest break of at least 20 minutes if s/he works more than six hours in a day.

Time when a worker can be called upon to work is counted as working time, not rest time. This was confirmed in the case of Anderson v Jarvis Hotels plc EAT/0062/05, in which the Employment Appeal Tribunal (EAT) held that a hotel worker required to stay overnight should have those hours counted as working time. Although he may have been asleep, he was still on call to deal with emergencies, as was shown when he was disciplined for leaving the hotel in the early hours of the morning.