Time recording imposed by the ECJ - Judgment of 14 May 2019 (C-55/18)

The European Court of Justice has ruled that each Member State must require employers to set up an objective, reliable and accessible system to record the time worked each day by each worker. This judgment is issued following preliminary questions from the Spanish court, but is also relevant for Belgium.

Belgian law, just like Spanish law, does not lay down a general obligation to record the time worked by each worker. At present, keeping track of working time is only required in a few cases. For example, workers with flexible work schedules (Art. 20ter) or part-time workers who deviate from their work schedules.

The European Court of Justice concluded that this is not in line with the European Working Time Directive 2003/88/EC, which requires Member States to take the necessary steps to ensure that the daily and weekly working time is respected. According to the Court, the only way to ensure this is to require employers to set up a recording system.

The judgment might have a serious impact. However, we are not at this stage yet. First of all, the Belgian law must be amended. As long as this has not been done, the Belgian courts have the obligation to interpret the existing law in light of the European Directive; however, this does not necessarily mean that a judge can oblige an employer to set up a recording system.

To be continued.

> Watch this space.