European Court Of Justice: Employers Must Implement A Daily Working Hours Registry

The European Court of Justice ("ECJ") recently ruled that all employers in EU Member States must implement a daily registry of employee working hours. This White Paper chronicles the judicial history that led to this landmark decision, identifies the ECJ's main conclusions, discusses the applicable legal framework in various EU Member States today, and analyzes the potential impact the ECJ decision may have in those EU Member States going forward.

On May 14, 2019, the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Justice ("ECJ") issued a Judgment declaring that all EU Members States must require employers to register the daily working time of their employees (ECJ Judgment, Case C-55/18—Deutsche Bank S.A.E.). The ECJ Judgment results from a controversial legal debate initiated in Spain five years ago.

BACKGROUND

A former Spanish law required employers to keep a registry of all overtime worked by their employees. In 2015, unions of a major Spanish financial institution filed a claim asking Spanish courts to declare that the financial institution was required to keep a registry of all employee working time, not just overtime, because otherwise the union could not determine if overtime had been worked. The Spanish National Court (Audiencia Nacional) issued a first Judgment1 that obligated the financial institution to establish a daily registry of all daily working hours performed by employees.

The bank appealed to the Spanish Supreme Court, which accepted the appeal and overruled2 the National Court's decision. It held that Spanish law did not require employers to implement a daily registry of working hours, except in very specific cases such as part-time employees and employees working overtime. However, the Supreme Court also noted it would be convenient to have a registry of daily working hours for various other purposes, such as controlling the resting time and maximum working hours from a health and safety perspective.

THE SECOND SPANISH LEGAL PROCEEDING, THE REQUEST FOR A PRELIMINARY RULING, AND THE ECJ'S JUDGMENT (CASE C-55/18—DEUTSCHE BANK S.A.E.)

A few months after the Spanish Supreme Court's judgment, the unions of a different financial institution filed a similar claim premised not on the overtime law but upon the arguments suggested by the Supreme Court in its earlier decision (i.e., controlling maximum working time regulations, rest, and health and safety). In January 2018, the Audiencia Nacional submitted a Request for Preliminary Ruling to the ECJ3 asking it to rule whether the Spanish labor legislation on working hours matters was compliant with the European regulations and, more specifically, with the Charter of...