Tuffnells case leads to confusion over 48 hours
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• by Karen Miles The Road Haulage Association is asking the Department of Trade and Industry if hauliers' office and warehouse staff should be covered by the general workingtime directive.
Since last autumn the directive has imposed a 48-hour limit on the working week with three weeks' paid leave, rising to four weeks from November.
Confusion has arisen in the wake of a Kent employment tribunal ruling when three office workers from Tuffnells Parcels Express were told that following a letter to the tribunal from the Department of Transport their application for holiday pay had been dismissed.
The DOT letter says: "Nonroad transport workers...such as office staff, who work in transport industries" are not currently covered by the directive.
Although the three Tuffnells workers are taking their case to the Employment Appeal Tribunal, the decision flies in the face of advice given Out by the RHA and lawyers that road transport ancillary workers should already be covered by the directve.
RHA employment head Ruth Pott says the problem has arisen because last year's DTi guidance clouded the issue: "We had always gone on the side of caution that ancillary workers for transport companies were covered by the directive," she explains.
Employment lawyers Leo Abse & Cohen agree that the tribunal decision, while not binding, could change the interpretation of the law. "There's some encouragement that if a transport client wanted to avoid the obligation of the working time directive there's a reasonable basis on which to say they could," says Nick Carney, head of employment at the firm.
When European Union social affairs ministers met in Brussels earlier this summer they agreed to include road transport ancillary workers in the new directive and to provide a safety net to Wend the provisions to CV drivers.
The European Commission is preparing a working time directive specifically to include CV drivers within the 48-hour limit.