Validity of time discount for coffee or smoking

The AN declares the implementation of a day registration system that discounts the time spent in smoking or at breakfast valid. He considers that the fact that workers went out to smoke or drink coffee without registering the day beforehand was a policy of business confidence under which each worker is responsible for developing the day committed. It also considers the signing system implemented in relation to work trips and the need for prior authorization to perform overtime valid.

After the entry into force of RDL 8/2019, which established the obligation to implement a system of hourly registration, the company met several times with the company committee in order to address the issue regarding the signing system. Finally, on 1-10-2019, the company’s address sends an email to the template communicating the implementation of the new registration system.

The union representation presents demand for collective conflict. It denounces that the company has established new working conditions in terms of working hours, breaks and effective work, which implies a substantial modification of working conditions that, having been adopted without respecting a previous period of real and effective consultations or a negotiation on specific proposals , must be declared null. Specifically, it requests that the following measures be declared void:

1. The implementation, as a criterion of registration, that the office and commercial staff that make trips and not return to the office on the same day is governed by the consideration that it takes 7 h 45 min. of effective work and not the time invested in the trip plus the work actually developed in customer service.

2. The measure that the extension of working hours outside of what is established in the work calendar and daily working hours – extraordinary hours – are subject to the prior authorization of the person directly responsible and not to the effective and material realization of an excess of work time.

3. The new calculation of signings in relation to absences for smoking, drinking coffee or breakfast, which until now were integrated as working time within the day and was not signed or discounted.