New Delhi: How much time it takes you to travel to and from your workplace? Add your travel time to your eight (or nine) hours shift (that sometimes extends for another couple of hours), you probably spend more than half of your day on your job.
No one at office appreciates or even considers how much time you spend in travelling to work, let alone pay you for it. May be in India that is a distant dream that anyone will count time taken to travel to work as work, but a European Court has just passed a law for it.
As per a report in The Independent, the European Court of Justice (ECJ) has ruled that the time taken to travel to and from work at the beginning and end of each day should count as working time under the law.
The Highest court in Europe ruled that workers without a fixed office should be able to charge for the time such journeys last, whereas at present they are not allowed to do so.
The ruling said: "The fact that the workers begin and finish the journeys at their homes stems directly from the decision of their employer to abolish the regional offices and not from the desire of the workers themselves.
"Requiring them to bear the burden of their employer's choice would be contrary to the objective of protecting the safety and health of workers pursued by the directive, which includes the necessity of guaranteeing workers a minimum rest period."
Meanwhile in India, workers are still struggling to get five days working and over-time payment for extended hours. It was party time for Banking Sector employees when the government announced second and fourth Saturdays of month as holidays.
On the other hand, employees of unorganised sector are fighting for basic amenities. Workers such as small and marginal farmers, landless agricultural labourers, share croppers and fishermen are struggling for social protection and improvement of work conditions.
