Spain’s Supreme Court has ruled that workers who go out to smoke or have a coffee outside their rest breaks will have to start clocking in each time they leave their workstation.
This judgment ratifies a previous judgment of the Audiencia Nacional of December 2019 and gives companies the possibility to prohibit their workers from these practices.
The high court has confirmed that employees will have to clock in when they are absent for smoking or coffee. In doing so, they dismissed the appeal filed by CCOO against the judgment of the Audiencia Nacional.
The union requested that the calculation of time derived from the implementation of the time recording system should be declared null and void. This was so that smoking, breakfast and coffee breaks would not be affected.
Until then, these breaks were integrated as working time within the workday and were not clocked in or deducted.
You will have to start punching in
The National Court considered that, although there was a turnstile access control at the work center, it was used only for security and risk prevention purposes in the building, not to control working hours.
As a result, the company had tolerated workers leaving the premises to smoke or drink coffee. Until now, this did not mean that the company considered such interruptions as actual work.
The Supreme Court upheld the criterion of the National Court, stating that there is no evidence that the break for smoking or drinking coffee was effective working time, and therefore no precept has been violated.
In addition, it was noted that there was no effective control and follow-up of each worker’s workday, which supports the decision to require workers to clock out every time they leave the workplace to drink coffee or smoke.
Working hours
Thus, in order to respect and comply with working hours, the Supreme Court has ruled that workers will have to clock in every time they go out to smoke or drink coffee outside their rest breaks.
The decision was based on the lack of effective control and monitoring of the workday performed by each worker and the fact that the break to smoke or drink coffee was not effective working time.
What is clear is that smoking can have a negative impact on the productivity of companies.
Smokers need to take regular smoke breaks, which can disrupt their workflow and distract them from their tasks.
In addition, smokers may experience side effects such as fatigue, coughing and shortness of breath, which can affect their work performance.
