In the Supreme Court’s judgment of 30 January 2024 (II PSKP 1/22), work performed in excess of the employee’s working time standards cannot therefore not include those periods of the statutory working time standard in which the employee is ready to perform the agreed work, but does not perform it for organizational reasons attributable to the employer.
The phrase „Work performed in excess of the employee’s working time standards” from Article 151 § 1 of the Labor Code in connection with Article 1511 § 1 of the Labor Code cannot not include periods of full readiness and availability of the employee to perform the agreed work. Contrary to the accusation, the plaintiff did not perform any preparatory activities, as discussed below, but fully complied with the employer’s instructions, i.e. he was transported from the assembly point to the excavator’s work site in order to perform work there.
This is not a situation in which the employee remains at the workplace without the purpose of performing work. Work performed in excess of the employee’s applicable working time standards cannot therefore exclude those periods from the statutory working time standard (Article 128 § 1 of the Labour Code) in which the employee is ready to perform the agreed work, but does not perform it for organizational reasons attributable to the employer. Such a reason is the need for the operator to travel from the assembly point to the excavator on the opencast mine. The need to travel (or walk) to the excavator is closely functionally related to the work entrusted to the employee to perform.
In such a case, the travel time to the excavator due to the employee’s submission to work orders is an objective value (working time within the meaning of Article 128 § 1 of the Labour Code), hence further work, already on the excavator, after exceeding the standards, becomes overtime work (Article 151 § 1 of the Labour Code). The working time standards fulfil the protective function of labour law, therefore, in the factual circumstances established in the case, the time of transporting the employee to the workplace was a time that fulfilled the working time standards, after exceeding which the employee is entitled to remuneration for overtime hours. In other words, the objection that the regulation of art. 151 § 1 of the Labour Code did not cover the time of transporting the plaintiff to the excavator in the opencast lignite mine is not justified.
For these reasons, the narrowing of the interpretation, expressed in the complaint, that „Remaining at the employer’s disposal cannot replace the requirement to perform work, and only such a situation entitles to bonuses for working overtime hours…” is not justified.
It is obvious that the standards of art. 128 § 1 of the Labour Code and art. 151 § 1 of the Labour Code take into account ordinary situations, i.e. when the employee starts work upon reporting to the workplace and his working time ends at the end of work. However, there are many special situations, because the job positions and duties to be performed differ, and for these situations the general regulation is also valid (Article 128 § 1 of the Labor Code and Article 151 § 1 of the Labor Code). Therefore, there are actual and legal limits to working time and time off from work. During work, one can distinguish periods of performing and not performing work, although in the latter the employee is still at the employer’s disposal, then – as indicated – the period of actual non-performance of work, which is at the same time at the employer’s disposal, which may consist of work performed in excess of the employee’s applicable working time standards, if the employee cannot perform it for reasons attributable to the employer or when, as in this case, it was necessary to transport the employee from the collection point to the bucket-wheel excavator that he operated in the lignite mine.