Travel time is paid by the employer: the ruling

Misunderstandings and ambiguities are never a good ingredient for a profitable continuation of the employment relationship. The employee obviously has the right to be paid as provided in his individual contract, but at the same time he may be the recipient of additional compensation not directly linked to a job. This was explained by the Court of Cassation with a ruling last year, the scope of which is very current precisely because of the clarifications it offered to companies and employees.

Travel time must be paid and calculated on the pay slip. Therefore, the employee who uses the company car to travel from the workplace to the place where he will perform the service, can claim in court what is due - if the company does not pay everything due. Let's see decision 16674/2024 and clarify all the rights in favor of the worker.

Travel is paid working time: the ruling

The case decided by the Supreme Court is similar to many others.

Some technicians working for a spa and field workers responsible for installation and maintenance work at the homes and premises of external customers had turned to the courts to obtain payment of the wages relating to the total travel time required to travel from the company 's headquarters to the home of the first customer in the morning, and to return to the same headquarters after the last intervention in the evening.

In particular, the workers were targeted by a company union agreement with which the employer (as part of a restructuring of working hours) had imposed that only times exceeding 30 minutes in total (15 outward and 15 return) would be paid. Travel time had to be verified thanks to the geolocation of the company vehicle.

In the first instance, the court, acting as a labor judge, rejected the claim. Subsequently, the appeal of the decision by the employees led to a less unfavorable outcome, although it still denied the order to pay the wage differences. This resulted in the maintenance technicians appealing to the Supreme Court.

Key points of the Supreme Court's decision

Recalling the case law on the matter ( Cass. n. 37286/2021 ), the Supreme Court closed the case, substantially giving reason to those who had contested the failure to count travel hours in working time.

In particular, the judges of Piazza Cavour remarked that:

• the preparatory time for the performance is included in working hours, if the related operations are carried out under the direction and control of the employer;
• in the case of personnel assigned to interventions at customer sites, the concept of hours includes the entire time period between arrival at the company premises, to collect the necessary equipment and to receive the employer's instructions, and the evening return;
• all collective agreements that provide for a time allowance, i.e. a maximum limit within which workers are responsible for the time necessary for the transfer from the place of hospitalisation of the company car to the place of the first intervention, as well as, at the end of the working day, for the return journey, are null and void.

This last point is particularly interesting.

The aforementioned clause of the company agreement is to be considered null and void because it violates art. 1 paragraph 2 letter a) of Legislative Decree 66/2003 , according to which every moment in which the employee is at the employer's disposal in carrying out his duties, including the time spent travelling from one place to another, is part of the working time and is paid.

The Court of Cassation has thus clarified that, if the worker is required to take the company vehicle at the office, then the paid time starts from when he arrives at the company to begin the geolocalized and planned trips by the employer. Consequently, as specified by the Court of Cassation in sentence no. 16674, the travel time:

It is certainly to be paid, in accordance with the principle of reciprocal performance.

What changes

The ruling we saw above is extremely important for all companies and employees because it reminds us that travel time is not free or “wasted”. Since it is functional to work performance, it must also be paid in the paycheck.

By law, working hours are the period in which the employee is and remains at the employer's disposal, under his control, and ready to carry out directions and tasks.

There are no differences between maintenance technicians, travelling workers or external assemblers, security system installers, on-site IT technicians, healthcare technicians or after-sales technical assistance workers: external direction , i.e. the constraint on the boss's instructions, involves the calculation of working time.

And even those who travel for work reasons must be paid for the hours of travel . In practical terms, if the company says where to go, when and with what equipment, the employee is not free and works even if he is driving on the highway.

Not only that. The law is valid above any conflicting union agreement. Therefore, even if the internal text has been signed, and there is agreement on all points, it cannot reduce rights established by law. And if it does, it is automatically cancelled and replaced by the full application of the law.

As with the so-called overall time (i.e. the time used to change clothes at work ), in conclusion, the time that the worker uses to travel from the company headquarters to the place of intervention and to return to the company, once the tasks at external customers have been completed, must always be included in the working hours .

If the employer does not also pay for travel time, it is possible to protect yourself in court.