weekly Rest Q

ASK THE EXPERTS SAFETY, LAW AND WORKING TIME DIRECTIVE FORUM (INTE
1

Right, here’s the deal.

I’m with an agency but a contract I am on has me working Weds/Thurs/Fri/Sat with one company in the afternoon. Having finished work, what is the soonest I can work the following week?

I understood I had to have 48hrs off between weeks, but the Agency reckon that I could work monday?! In this specific instance I actually worked last week Mon, Tue, Wed, Fri & Saturday; so Sun & Thurs could be by days off?! Is that right as well?

Do I have to have my 48h together or can I split it? :unamused: :unamused:

Need to get this right as I’m doing it for a while and need to plan things a bit…

TIA for the advice :wink:

2

Saratoga:
Right, here’s the deal.

I’m with an agency but a contract I am on has me working Weds/Thurs/Fri/Sat with one company in the afternoon. Having finished work, what is the soonest I can work the following week?

Depends what time you finished and whether you can take a reduced weekly rest or not.

Saratoga:
I understood I had to have 48hrs off between weeks,

No. not correct. In any two consecutive weeks you must either take two regular weekly rest periods, a regular rest period is at least 45 hours, or one regular and one reduced, a reduced weekly rest period is more than 24 hours but less than 45.

Saratoga:
but the Agency reckon that I could work monday?!

Based on the information you have given you could.

Saratoga:
In this specific instance I actually worked last week Mon, Tue, Wed, Fri & Saturday; so Sun & Thurs could be by days off?! Is that right as well?

They could be but it depends how much weekly rest you had last week, and when you had it, and how much time there was between finishing work on Wednesday and resuming on Friday.

Saratoga:
Do I have to have my 48h together or can I split it?

A weekly rest period must be taken in one lump, you cannot split it over different days.

As I said based on the information given you could certainly work today but to give you a definitive answer i would need the times you worked on Wednesday, Friday and Saturday, which days you worked last week, when you had a weekly rest last week and the time of that weekly rest.

3

Saratoga:
Right, here’s the deal.

I’m with an agency but a contract I am on has me working Weds/Thurs/Fri/Sat with one company in the afternoon. Having finished work, what is the soonest I can work the following week?

I understood I had to have 48hrs off between weeks, but the Agency reckon that I could work monday?! In this specific instance I actually worked last week Mon, Tue, Wed, Fri & Saturday; so Sun & Thurs could be by days off?! Is that right as well?

Do I have to have my 48h together or can I split it? :unamused: :unamused:

Need to get this right as I’m doing it for a while and need to plan things a bit…

TIA for the advice :wink:

You should have 45 consecutive hours weekly rest every week, or you can have a reduced weekly rest of no less than 24 hours every other week, if you have a reduced weekly rest you must pay back the reduction by the end of the third week following the end of the week in which you had a reduced weekly rest.

So if you have a reduced weekly rest of say 36 hours this week, you must have a full 45 hour weekly rest next week, you can’t have a reduced weekly rest every week.

Also if you had a reduced rest of 36 hours this week you would need to add the missed 9 hours onto either a daily rest or another weekly rest, before the end of the third week following this week.

Hope this all makes sense :wink:

The regulations on weekly rest are bellow.

Within six 24 hour periods from the end of the last weekly rest period, a driver will extend a daily rest period into either:

A regular weekly rest period of at least 45 hours.
Or a reduced weekly rest period of less than 45 hours but at least 24 hours.

In any two consecutive weeks, a driver shall take at least two regular weekly rest periods, or one regular weekly rest period and one reduced weekly rest period of at least 24 hours.
However, the reduction shall be compensated by an equivalent period of rest taken en bloc before the end of the third week following the week in question.

Any rest taken as compensation for a reduced weekly rest period shall be attached to another rest period of at least nine hours.

A weekly rest period that falls in two weeks may be counted in either week, but not in both.

A rest period of at least 69 hours in total may be counted as two back-to-back weekly rests (e.g. a 45-hour weekly rest followed by 24 hours), provided that the driver does not exceed 144 hours’ work either before or after the rest period in question.

4

Have a look on the VOSA website, there is a leaflet about drivers hours:-

vosa.gov.uk/vosacorp/reposit … 0Hours.pdf

45 hours is weekly rest, but as far as I know you cannot split it over two non consecutive days.

5

Well … you can split the 45 hour break over 2 none consecutive days every other week.

If you had 24 hours off on Tuesday, and had 21 hours off on the following Sunday (the same tacho week), you would have compensated for the reduced rest on Tuesday.
But you could only do this every 2nd week, because a week where you have a reduced weekly rest has to be preceded and followed by weeks when you have a full 45 hour weekly rest (45 consectutive hours).

6

Indeed Tachograph, but in this instance Saratoga wants to do it every week.

7

The ‘every week’ shift is going to be, as far as I am aware:

Tues - Sat working with Sun and Mon off, is that ok?

The Wed-Sat would be 8h from 1200 noon onwards, and the Tuesday would be whatever they had available for me. :unamused:

I think that would be ok, right? Last week was because I was still doing a variety of shifts until the newer 4 day job was instigated on the weekend, if you see what I mean :wink:

8

Saratoga:
The ‘every week’ shift is going to be, as far as I am aware:

Tues - Sat working with Sun and Mon off, is that ok?

The Wed-Sat would be 8h from 1200 noon onwards, and the Tuesday would be whatever they had available for me. :unamused:

I think that would be ok, right? Last week was because I was still doing a variety of shifts until the newer 4 day job was instigated on the weekend, if you see what I mean :wink:

If you’re having Sunday and Monday off every week you’d have no problems, If you finish on Saturday by say 21:00 you would be free to start again any time after 18:00 on Monday, you would then have had a full 45 hour weekly rest period.

9

tachograph:
Within six 24 hour periods from the end of the last weekly rest period, a driver will extend a daily rest period into either:

A regular weekly rest period of at least 45 hours.
Or a reduced weekly rest period of less than 45 hours but at least 24 hours.

reading this does it mean I can work 6 days
example
Starting Monday at 6 am to Saturday at 6 pm with 6 working periods
take a reduced weekend break of 36 hours
then work 6 days the next week
starting Monday 6 am to Saturday, 2 pm
then have a 45 hour break,
work 6 days again,
Starting 11 am Monday to 10 pm Saturday with a 22 hour break in the middle of the week,
then have a 36 hours Break etc etc ad infinitum.
Does it matter where the weekend break starts and finishes in relation to the start time of the week?

10

jimti:

tachograph:
Within six 24 hour periods from the end of the last weekly rest period, a driver will extend a daily rest period into either:

A regular weekly rest period of at least 45 hours.
Or a reduced weekly rest period of less than 45 hours but at least 24 hours.

reading this does it mean I can work 6 days
example
Starting Monday at 6 am to Saturday at 6 pm with 6 working periods
take a reduced weekend break of 36 hours
then work 6 days the next week
starting Monday 6 am to Saturday, 2 pm
then have a 45 hour break,
work 6 days again,
Starting 11 am Monday to 10 pm Saturday with a 22 hour break in the middle of the week,
then have a 36 hours Break etc etc ad infinitum.
Does it matter where the weekend break starts and finishes in relation to the start time of the week?

It looks OK to me, the 22 hour break would be a daily rest plus payback for the reduced weekly rest.

You can have the weekly rest period at any time during the week (00:00 Monday to 24:00 Sunday) as long as you have a full 45 hour rest period at least every second week, as you know you can’t go two consecutive weeks without at least one full 45 hour weekly rest.

A weekly rest period that overlaps two weeks (Sunday / Monday) can count for either week but not both.

The reduced weekly rest periods have to be compensated for by adding the compensation onto a rest period of not less than nine hours, by the end of the third week following the week in which you had the reduced weekly rest period.