Working hours in Spain (daily register): The Spanish Ministery of Labour publishes a Practical Guide about the new rule

The Spanish Ministry of Labour, Migrations & Social Security has just published a Practical Guide clarifying some aspects of the daily register of working hours of all employees

We explain in this post the main clarifications it contains:

Who is forced to implant the daily register of working hours?

The daily register of working hours involves to all workers, regardless of their category or professional group, to all sectors of activity and to all companies, regardless of the size of work organization, provided that are included in the scope of application defined in Article 1 ET (Spanish Worker´s Statute, Estatuto de los Trabajadores in Spanish).

Thus, companies are obliged to register daily the working hours, even with respect to “mobile” workers, commercial staff, temporary workers, teleworking or any other situations in which the labor benefit does not develop, totally or partially, in the work center of the company.

Are there any exceptions to the rule?

The only peculiarities or exceptions are the following:

– Special employment relationship (senior management personnel – senior executives, according to Royal Decree 1382/85, dated 1 August, which regulates senior managers’ special employment contract).

– Workers who have a specific or particular regime in the field of daily register of working hours:

a) Workers with a part-time contract, for whom there is already a registration obligation regulated in article 12.4.c) ET.

b) Workers who already have specific regulated registers in Royal Decree 1561/1995, of September 21, on special work days, and what are called in the Royal Decree itself mobile workers (certain road transport), merchant marine workers and workers who perform cross-border interoperability services in rail transport, all of them as consequence of various community directives.

– With respect to those other relationships or work benefits excluded from the scope of the Workers’ Statute, as working partners of the cooperatives, self-employed workers, etc. the daily register of working hours (article 34.9 ET) will not be applied and, therefore, there will be no obligation to register time.

The new rule involves to teleworking & Flexible working time?

The Practical Guide it crystal clear that companies are also obliged by the new law to register working hours in the case of teleworking and in companies that offer flexible working time.

The Ministery points out that there are affordable formulas (at affordable prices) that ensure the recording of the daily work, including specificities and particularities or flexibility to do the register (flexible working times, for instance), through telematic registration or similar (for instance, through an app).

Click here for further information.

And click here for further information about the Court of Justice of European Union that has sentenced today, May 14, that Member States must require employers to set up a system enabling the duration of daily working time to be measured (Judgment in Case C-55/18 Federación de Servicios de Comisiones Obreras (CCOO) v Deutsche Bank SAE).

And remember that if you are thinking about set up a company in Spain, or if you have workers in Spain, don´t hesitate to contact our team of experts.