The advocate general’s opinion in Kiel v Jaeger,a German reference to the
European Court of Justice, suggests that on-call hours for doctors count as
working time, even if the doctors spend their on-call hours asleep. This case
could re-open controversy about the working time definition in The Working Time
Regulations 1998, at the same time as the opt out from the 48-hour weekly
working time limit is due to be reviewed and possibly abolished by the European
Commission.
Can employees outsourced under TUPE subsequently claim equal pay using
comparators still employed by the transferor? A recent advocate general’s
opinion in Allonby follows the earlier ECJ case of Lawrence in rejecting this
possibility, even if the TUPE transfer has been deliberately used to avoid
giving part-time staff the same terms as full-timers.
