Proper working-time accounting as a safeguard for employees’ occupational health and safety

Abstract

Every employee has the right to working conditions that respect their health, safety, and dignity. Working time is a condition of employment and is subject to restrictions to safeguard employees’ occupational health and safety. EU Member States are obliged to ensure that these restrictions are observed in employment relationships. Compliance with working-time restrictions can be ensured through working-time accounting. The corresponding obligation is imposed on employers, who are expected to establish an objective, reliable, and accessible system for accounting for working time. This article examines how to create a working-time accounting system that meets the above conditions and protects employees’ health and safety. To calculate working time, it is essential to understand the various ways in which it can be determined. An “always-on” work culture and the blurring of boundaries between working and rest time complicate working-time accounting. The absence of national regulation may lead employers to assume that it is sufficient to measure working time at their own discretion. This approach creates inequality at the national level and fails to foster a favourable environment for protecting workers’ health, safety, and dignity. In this article, the authors present their view of how a working-time accounting system should be designed to ensure safeguards for employees’ occupational health and safety. The article is based on an analysis of European Union, Spanish, German, Greek, and Estonian regulations.