Topics

Rest breaks and rest periods

New and updated

  • Type:
    FAQs

    Is a worker entitled to a 20-minute rest break for each six-hour period worked?

  • Type:
    FAQs

    Can workers opt out of rest breaks?

  • Date:
    22 November 2008
    Type:
    Employment law cases

    Working time: Rest breaks and compensatory rest

    In The Corps of Commissionaires Management Ltd v Hughes EAT/0196/08, the EAT held that the entitlement under the Working Time Regulations 1998 to a 20-minute rest break where the working day exceeds six hours is an entitlement to a single rest break and not a rest break for every six hours worked. Where an exception means that the right to a rest break does not apply, the employer must provide compensatory rest, which should be granted at a time when the worker would otherwise be working.

  • Date:
    28 October 2008
    Type:
    Employment law cases

    Case of the week: Working time

    This week's case of the week, provided by DLA Piper, covers working time.

  • Date:
    14 July 2008
    Type:
    Employment law cases

    Working time: No award of compensation for failure to give rest breaks

    In Miles v Linkage Community Trust Ltd EAT/0618/07, the EAT held that an employment tribunal was entitled to make no award of compensation where an employer had breached its obligations under the working time rules in respect of daily rest breaks.

  • Type:
    FAQs

    If an employee works for six hours a day are they entitled to a rest break?

  • Date:
    1 October 2006
    Type:
    Employment law cases

    UK working time guidelines infringe EU law

    On 7 September 2006, the European Court of Justice (ECJ) ruled that government guidelines accompanying the UK's Working Time Regulations are liable to render the right of workers to daily and weekly rest periods meaningless because they do not oblige employers to ensure that workers actually take the minimum rest periods.

  • Date:
    7 April 2006
    Type:
    Employment law cases

    Working time/national minimum wage: Entire duty on call found to be 'working time'

    In MacCartney v Oversley House Management, the EAT the Employment Appeal Tribunal holds that an employee who was required to remain on call at or close to her place of work was 'working' even if her employer provided her with a home at her place of work.

  • Type:
    Quick reference

    Rest breaks

    A table setting out the rest breaks to which workers are entitled.

  • Date:
    28 January 2005
    Type:
    Employment law cases

    Working time: Periods of 'downtime' are not rest breaks

    In Gallagher and others v Alpha Catering Services Ltd, the Court of Appeal holds that, for the purposes of reg. 21(c) of the Working Time Regulations 1998, it is the worker's activities, not the activities of the employer's business, that are relevant when considering the need for continuity of service or production.