National Minimum Wage and sleeping time

When the provisions of the Working Time Regulations came into force, there was a run of cases concerning whether those that were required to be on night shifts sleeping at the employer’s premises were in fact working for the purposes of working time. The recent case of Esparon t/a Middle West Residential Care Home v Slavikovska before the EAT heard arguments on whether a “sleep in” nightshift constituted “time work” for the purposes of the National Minimum Wage legislation or whether the employee was merely on call.
The EAT held that the worker was engaged in “ time work” on those sleep in shifts. The EAT recognised that it was very difficult to distinguish between cases where the worker was at work, being paid to be on the employer’s premises just in case or just on call. In this case, the fact that the employer had a legal requirement to ensure that staff were available on the premises at all times meant that the worker was entitled to be paid to fulfil that legal obligation on behalf of the employer. It mattered not whether the employee did any work as they were required to be on the employer’s premises for that period.