Another ECJ Ruling on Working Time Recording

Jan 24, 2025 Benn-Ibler Rechtsanwälte

In a recent ruling, the European Court of Justice (ECJ) has decided that the obligation to record working time also applies to domestic workers.

In the national case in question, a full-time domestic worker had challenged her dismissal before a Spanish court. Her dismissal was declared unfair and her employer was ordered to pay her unused holiday entitlement. However, the Spanish court held that the worker had not properly documented the hours she had worked. She was only able to supply her own records, which was lawful, as Spain has a regulation that exempts this professional group, among others, from keeping records of working hours. The national appeal court referred the case to the ECJ because it had doubts about the lawfulness of these exemptions.

A few years earlier, in a landmark ruling on the recording of working time, the ECJ had declared the Spanish legislation in force at the time to be incompatible with the Working Time Directive 2003/88/EC. As a result, Spanish lawmakers had introduced a compulsory system of recording working hours. However, this system provided for exemptions for a number of occupational groups including domestic workers.

In the view of the ECJ, such exemptions are in breach of EU law, as domestic workers would be deprived of the possibility of determining in an objective and reliable manner how many hours they have worked and when those hours have been worked.

On the other hand, derogations may be made on the basis of the sector of activity in question or the characteristics of certain employers, such as their size, on condition that the maximum weekly working time is effectively guaranteed. For example, because of the specificities of the domestic work sector, exceptions may be made for overtime and part-time work, provided that they do not deprive the regulation in question of its essential content.

The exemption from the requirement to keep records of working time may be an indirect form of discrimination, as domestic workers are an overwhelmingly female workforce.

ECJ C-531/23 (19 December 2024)