A. All workers have the right to take an uninterrupted 20 minute break if they work for six hours or more in a day. There are different rights for younger workers. This break has to be during the working day and not at the end or the beginning. Workers can make a claim to a tribunal that they haven’t received their rights or they have been refused their working time rights. Previously, a tribunal case decided that the worker has to ask for a break and be refused before the employer would be liable.
However, a recent case has come to a different conclusion on this. In the case, the employee worked for a bus company and was responsible for monitoring the frequency of buses. He worked for 8.5 hours a day with a 30 minute lunch break that he struggled to take because of the nature of his role. Around a year later, the employer changed his working hours and reduced the working day to eight hours with his break being taken at the end of the day. The employee made a claim to tribunal that he had been refused his legal breaks.
The first tribunal found that because he had not asked for his rest breaks he could not be refused these. However, on appeal, the Employment Appeal Tribunal decided that an employer effectively refuses the entitlement to a break if they put in place working arrangements which do not allow the break to be taken. Therefore, the employee does not have to ask for the right to be refused the right.
These contrasting decisions will require a higher court to clarify what the final legal direction is. However, the case makes it clear that your clients should not be arranging the working day to avoid giving breaks, to force employers to miss breaks or to imply that this is a requirement of their role. Instead, your clients should take an active stance and remind staff about their right to take breaks, how they can take breaks and to speak to them if the employee feels they cannot take the time to have their rest breaks. Your client cannot force their staff to take breaks, but they must allow them the opportunity to take them.
