Federación de Servicios Privados del sindicato Comisiones obreras (CC.OO.) v Tyco Integrated Security SL and Tyco Integrated Fire & Security Corporation Servicios SA.

• Jurisdiction: European Union
• Celex Number: 62014CJ0266
• ECLI: ECLI:EU:C:2015:578
• Docket Number: C-266/14
• Date: 10 September 2015
• Court: Court of Justice (European Union)
• Procedure Type: Reference for a preliminary ruling

JUDGMENT OF THE COURT (Third Chamber)

10 September 2015 ( *1 )

‛Reference for a preliminary ruling — Social policy — Directive 2003/88/EC — Protection of the safety and health of workers — Organisation of working time — Point (1) of Article 2 — Concept of ‘working time’ — Workers who are not assigned a fixed or habitual place of work — Time spent travelling between the workers’ homes and the premises of the first and last customers’

In Case C‑266/14,

REQUEST for a preliminary ruling under Article 267 TFEU from the Audiencia Nacional (Spain), made by decision of 22 May 2014, received at the Court on 2 June 2014, in the proceedings

Federación de Servicios Privados del sindicato Comisiones obreras (CC.OO.)

v

Tyco Integrated Security SL,

Tyco Integrated Fire & Security Corporation Servicios SA,

THE COURT (Third Chamber),

composed of M. Ilešič, President of the Chamber, A. Ó Caoimh (Rapporteur), C. Toader, E. Jarašiūnas and C.G. Fernlund, Judges,

Advocate General: Y. Bot,

Registrar: M. Ferreira, Principal Administrator,

having regard to the written procedure and further to the hearing on 22 April 2015,

after considering the observations submitted on behalf of:

— the Federación de Servicios Privados del sindicato Comisiones obreras (CC.OO.), by E. Lillo Pérez and F. Gualda Alcalá, abogados,

— Tyco Integrated Security SL and Tyco Integrated Fire & Security Corporation Servicios SA, by J. Martínez Pérez de Espinosa, abogado,

— the Spanish Government, by J. García-Valdecasas Dorrego, acting as Agent,

— the Czech Government, by M. Smolek, acting as Agent,

— the Italian Government, by G. Palmieri, acting as Agent, and F. Varrone, avvocato dello Stato,

— the United Kingdom Government, by L. Christie and L. Barfoot, acting as Agents, and S. Lee, QC, and G. Facenna, Barrister,

— the European Commission, by M. van Beek and N. Ruiz García, acting as Agents,

after hearing the Opinion of the Advocate General at the sitting on 11 June 2015,

gives the following

Judgment

1 This request for a preliminary ruling concerns the interpretation of point (1) of Article 2 of Directive 2003/88/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 4 November 2003 concerning certain aspects of the organisation of working time (OJ 2003 L 299, p. 9).

2 The request has been made in the course of proceedings between the Federación de Servicios Privados del sindicato Comisiones obreras (CC.OO.) and Tyco Integrated Security SL and Tyco Integrated Fire & Security Corporation Servicios SA (together ‘Tyco’) concerning the refusal by the latter undertakings to consider the time spent by their employees on daily travel between their homes and the premises of the first and last customers designated by their employer (‘time spent travelling between home and customers’) as ‘working time’, within the meaning of point (1) of Article 2 of that directive.

Legal context

EU law

3	According to recital 4 in the preamble to Directive 2003/88: ‘The improvement of workers’ safety, hygiene and health at work is an objective which should not be subordinated to purely economic considerations’.

4 Article 1 of that directive provides: ‘1. This Directive lays down minimum safety and health requirements for the organisation of working time. 2. This Directive shall apply to: (a) minimum periods of daily rest, weekly rest and annual leave, to breaks and maximum weekly working time; and (b) certain aspects of night work, shift work and patterns of work. 3. This Directive shall apply to all sectors of activity, both public and private, within the meaning of Article 2 of [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 (OJ 1989 L 183, p. 1)], without prejudice to Articles 14, 17, 18 and 19 of this Directive. … 4. The provisions of Directive 89/391 … are fully applicable to the matters referred to in paragraph 2, without prejudice to more stringent and/or specific provisions contained in this Directive.’

5 Article 2 of that directive, entitled ‘Definitions’, provides in points 1 and 2: ‘For the purposes of this Directive, the following definitions shall apply: 1. “working time” means any period during which the worker is working, at the employer’s disposal and carrying out his activity or duties, in accordance with national laws and/or practice; 2. “rest period” means any period which is not working time.’

6 Article 3 of the same directive, entitled ‘Daily rest’, is worded as follows: ‘Member States shall take the measures necessary to ensure that every worker is entitled to a minimum daily rest period of 11 consecutive hours per 24-hour period.’

Spanish law

7 Article 34 of the Workers’ Statute, in the version resulting from Royal Legislative Decree No 1/1995 approving the amended text of the Law on the Workers’ Statute (Real Decreto Legislativo 1/1995, por el que se aprueba el texto refundido de la Ley del Estatuto de los Trabajadores) of 24 March 1995 (BOE No 75 of 29 March 1995, p. 9654), provides, in paragraphs 1, 3 and 5: ‘1. Working hours shall be as specified in collective agreements or employment contracts. Normal working hours shall average no more than 40 hours per week of actual work, calculated on an annual basis. … 3. There must be at least 12 hours between the end of one working day and the beginning of the following working day. Normal working hours shall not exceed nine hours of actual work per day unless a different pattern of daily working hours applies by virtue of a collective agreement or, failing that, by agreement between the employer and the representatives of the workers, subject in all cases to the requirement for a rest period between working days. … 5. Working time shall be calculated in such a way that a worker is present at his place of work both at the beginning and at the end of the working day.’

The dispute in the main proceedings and the question referred for a preliminary ruling

8 Tyco carries out, in the majority of Spanish provinces, a business that involves installing and maintaining security systems which enable intrusions to be detected and burglaries to be prevented.

9 In 2011 Tyco closed its offices in the provinces (‘the regional offices’) and attached all its employees to the central office in Madrid (Spain).

10 The technicians employed by Tyco install and maintain, in a functioning state, security equipment in private homes and on industrial and commercial premises located within the geographical area assigned to them, which consists of all or part of the province in which they work and sometimes more than one province.

11 Those workers each have the use of a company vehicle in which they travel every day from their homes to the places where they are to carry out the installation or maintenance of security systems. They use the same vehicle to return home at the end of the day.

12 According to the referring court, the distances from those workers’ homes to the places where they are to carry out work vary a great deal and are sometimes more than 100 kilometres. It gives the example of a case in which, because of the volume of traffic, the time spent travelling between home and customers was three hours.

13 The same workers are also required to travel at least once per week to the offices of a transport logistics company near their homes to pick up equipment, parts and materials needed for their work.

14 In order to carry out their duties, the workers at issue in the main proceedings are each provided with a mobile phone, which they use to communicate remotely with the central office in Madrid. An application installed on their phone allows workers to receive on the eve of their working day the task list for the following day identifying the various premises that they are required to visit that day within their geographical area of work, and the times of their customer appointments. By means of another application, the workers input the details relating to the work they have done and send them to their company in order to record the incidents that have occurred and the work that has been carried out.

15 The referring court notes that Tyco does not count the time spent travelling between home and customers as working time, thus regarding it as a rest period.

16 According to that court, Tyco calculates daily working hours by counting the time elapsing between when its employees arrive at the premises of the first customer of the day and when those employees leave the premises of the last customer, account being taken only of the time of the work on the premises and of the journeys getting from one customer to another. Before the closure of the regional offices, however, Tyco used to count the daily working time of its employees as starting when they arrived at those offices in order to pick up the vehicle they were to use and receive the list of customers to be visited and the task list and ending when they returned in the evening to leave the vehicle at these offices.

17 That court takes the view that the concept of working time is placed in opposition to that of a rest period in Directive 2003/88 and that therefore that directive makes no provision for other situations falling between the two. It notes that the time spent travelling between home and customers is not regarded as working time...