The European Court of Justice (ECJ) has ruled that – under certain circumstances – the time spent on call time counts as work. In the present case a firefighter on call time was only allowed to stay at his residence and he had to be ready for work with only eight minutes’ notice. Because of the residence restriction and the short notice period, the firefighter’s ability to devote himself to his personal and social interest was constrained, and therefore the time spent on call time in this case can be qualified as work. The ECJ has ruled that, because of the need to be “physically present”, the present case differs from workers on stand-by duty, whose employers need simply to be able to contact them.
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