“Overalls time” remunerable only if overalls are obligatory

With its order no. 505 of 11 January 2019, the Italian Court of Cassation established the principle that workers have the right to be remunerated for the time it takes them to put on work clothes at the business premises, only if it is demonstrated that workers are obliged to use company dressing rooms and have to arrive at the workplace early to perform that operation.

The facts

Some employees in service at a company trading in the shipbuilding sector had filed action with the Court with territorial jurisdiction in order to obtain a ruling against said company ordering it to remunerate them for the time that it took them to put on and take off their work overalls and shower, equal to 30 minutes per day.
First the Court with territorial jurisdiction, and then the Court of Appeal, rejected the claim brought by the workers on the basis of the fact that they had failed to assert in court:
• the existence of the employer’s power – or indirect power – to oblige workers to perform the additional activity;
• that they were obliged to arrive at the workplace early and to use the company dressing rooms, since they were also free to perform those preparatory activities at their own homes;
• that, due to the nature of the work overalls, shoes and safety devices, the use of those items of clothing outside of the workplace was not appropriate or adequate, according to social norms.

In light of the above, therefore, neither the witness testimonies nor the cross-examination – which was, moreover, deferred to individuals without the power to exercise the right in question – were admissible, since they were deemed irrelevant given that they related to checks performed after the employees had changed into their work clothes.
The workers filed an appeal against the Court of Appeal’s ruling at the Court of Cassation, based on two grounds, which the employer company opposed with its own defence arguments in a counter-appeal.
The ruling of the Court
The Court of Cassation upheld the decision on the merits on the assumption that the principle applied was consistent with that which had been established by consolidated case law, namely that “in employment relationships, the time it takes to put on the company uniform is only included within working hours if it is subject to the employer’s power to oblige employees to do so, which can derive either from explicit company rules or, implicitly, from the nature of the clothing or the function that it must fulfil, so as to establish an obligation to put on the uniform at the workplace” (cf. Court of Cassation, employment division, judgment no. 7738/2018).
According to the Supreme Court of Cassation, it follows that the evidence provided related to circumstances that were irrelevant to the decision, because they were not representative of the ‘hetero-direction’, and that it had therefore been correctly rejected by the trial Judge.

Conclusions

In essence, from the judgment in question one can deduce that the so-called ‘overalls time’ must be remunerated, as it falls within effective working hours, in cases in which the affected workers are obliged by their employer to use the company’s dressing rooms and have to arrive at the workplace early.
However, ‘overalls time’ must not be remunerated where employees are given the opportunity to choose when and where (including at home) to put on the uniform.