ATL

Know your limits

The Working Time Regulations have been in effect for 11 years. ATL solicitor Kehinde Adeogun explains your rights to working time and rest breaks

The Working Time Regulations came into force in 1998 to provide statutory regulation of working hours in the UK. The regulations cover England, Scotland and Wales, while similar regulations apply in Northern Ireland. Many ATL members rely on the protection of the regulations to benefit from a work/life balance.

The regulations state that every worker is statutorily entitled to work no more than 48 hours a week, unless they have agreed with their employer to work longer hours. In order to agree to work longer hours an employee must sign an agreement opting out of the 48-hour limit.

The limit is set to protect a worker's health and safety by discouraging excessive working hours. While ATL supports and welcomes the basis of the limit, it also recognises there are situations in which the work required cannot be done in a 48-hour period. This is why the regulations allow for an 'opt-out' clause. Every worker who has opted out can give three months' notice to opt back in.

The 48-hour limit is calculated by averaging out working hours over a 17-week period. School holidays are included in this calculation and so it's unlikely that those employed in an education establishment will exceed 48 hours on average.

If you have any queries about your rights in relation to a maximum working week of 48 hours, contact your ATL rep or local branch official.

As well as a limit on the working week the regulations also provide rights about a worker's entitlement to daily rest, weekly rest and rest breaks in general.

Every worker is entitled to a daily rest period of at least 11 consecutive hours in each 24-hour period during which he or she works. In practical terms this means that, from the last piece of work that you are contracted to do, you should be entitled to 11 hours' break before being required to start the next piece of work within a 24-hour period.

A daily rest period can only be defined as such if you are able to leave your workplace and pursue activities of your own choosing. If you are on call - even if you are inactive during your on call hours - those hours will not count towards your entitlement to a consecutive 11-hour rest period as they will be seen as working time.

All workers are entitled to a period of uninterrupted rest of no less than 24 hours in each seven-day period. This period starts at midnight between Sunday and Monday. As with daily rest, a weekly rest period is a period in which a worker is not required to carry out working time.

The 24-hour uninterrupted weekly rest period can be assessed over a 14-day period whereby a worker's entitlement would be to two uninterrupted rest periods each of no less than 24 hours in each 14-day period or one uninterrupted rest period of no less than 48 hours in each 14-day period.

It is important to note that the weekly rest period is a separate right to the daily rest period and the two should run consecutively. There are, however, certain situations where they can run concurrently but only if an employer can show that an objective, technical or organisational reason applies. Please speak to your ATL branch official to see if this clause will apply in your situation.

Apart from the daily rest and weekly rest entitlements, every worker is also entitled to a rest break of at least 20 uninterrupted minutes if their daily working time is more than six hours. Unfortunately, this does not mean that you are entitled to a further 20-minute break if your working day extends beyond six hours.

Your statutory entitlement is to a 20-minute break away from your workstation, but you may contractually be entitled to additional breaks or a longer lunch break. Although the regulations do not specify, the view of the Courts is that the rest break should not come at the beginning and/or end of a working day and that it should not overlap with the entitlement to a daily or weekly rest period.

The regulations were brought in to ensure that workers' health and safety is not compromised by the hours they work. If you have any concerns about working time and health and safety please do not hesitate to contact your ATL rep.