Hotel manager wins right to sleep on job

10 August 2006

A hotel manager who was required to stay at the premises overnight to deal with emergencies has won his fight to be paid while sleeping on the job. William Anderson, guest care manager at the Learmonth Hotel in Edinburgh, was awarded £1,584 compensation from his employer, Jarvis Hotels. He won on appeal after initially losing his employment tribunal case. The hotel argued "on-call" time, where he slept at the premises, should not be regarded as working time.

But the Employment Appeal Tribunal in Edinburgh ruled he should be paid as he was contractually obliged to be present, which meant that it was working time. Mr Anderson was required to sleep over in the hotel several nights a week to deal with emergencies such as fire or flood. Acting general manager Kevin Logan told the tribunal they had to have two employees in the hotel at night to meet health and safety and fire regulations.

EAT judge Lady Smith said: "It was plainly wrong to say that the claimant was not at the respondents' disposal during sleep-overs given that the respondents required him to be in their premises during those periods for a stated purpose. He was, clearly, working.'' The tribunal heard Mr Anderson was required to sleep over at the hotel even though he lived only 10 or 15 minutes walk away. 'Misses the point' He was warned that any absence during a sleepover period would be a disciplinary matter.

During his employment, he had been called upon by the night porter to deal with rowdy guests and there had been an evacuation when the fire alarm went off. But such calls were rare. Mr Anderson was normally asleep during his sleepover period but his presence in the hotel was not a voluntary matter.

In the EAT judgment, Lady Smith said: "Being present in the premises was, primarily, what he was employed to do during sleep-over periods. "That was, accordingly, his work. I am readily satisfied that the tribunal were in error in taking the view, as they did, that he could only be regarded as working if he was carrying out some specific activity during a sleep-over period. That approach simply misses the point."

Source: www.bbc.co.uk