Transport company to pay over 12,000 euros for not counting waiting time as working time

A transport company in the Basque Country will have to pay over 12,000 euros to an employee for excess working hours, after the Basque High Court (Tribunal Superior de Justicia del País Vasco) dismissed its appeal and upheld the conviction with an order to pay costs. The underlying issue matters to any company that runs shifts, waiting periods or on-call duty: the time the employee spent waiting for the next assignment is working time, and the failure to log it left the company with no defence.

What happened

The worker claimed payment for the periods that passed between one service and the next. The company presented them as rest breaks that did not have to be paid. The court (ruling 2591/2026) saw it differently, and the fact that settled the case was a matter of common sense. All those periods fell between the opening and closing of the daily activity, and each one was followed by another stretch of driving or a load. If actual work came after the supposed break, the worker had never stopped being at the company’s disposal.

Why it is working time

Transport is governed by a special regime, Royal Decree 1561/1995, which distinguishes effective working time from time of presence, the time in which the worker is at the employer’s disposal without driving, because of waiting periods, breakdowns or on-call duty. That time of presence does not vanish from the count. The collective agreement determines how it is paid, and here the applicable one required it to be paid. The court also confirmed late-payment interest, because the worker was paid late for something he was owed.

What really sank the company

The problem was not only legal, it was evidentiary. The company produced no record breaking down how much time was driving, how much was loading and unloading, and how much was waiting. Without that detail, it could not challenge the worker’s figures, and the court accepted all the time claimed. It is the same pattern that keeps recurring in overtime claims: when the record is missing, the doubt is resolved in the employee’s favour.

Hence the lesson for any company with waiting periods, standby or on-call duty. A record that only notes a clock-in and a clock-out is not enough. It has to allow you to separate effective work from time of presence and from genuine rest, because that distinction drives both what gets paid and your ability to defend yourself in a lawsuit. If you want the full framework, we explain it in when waiting time and on-call duty count as working time and in why, without a record, the burden of proof turns against you.

In Cleverfy you can configure breaks that count as working time and breaks that do not, set limits for each type, and let every stretch be logged with its own nature, down to the hour and minute, with no way to alter it afterwards without leaving a trace. It is exactly the breakdown a court wants to see. You can try it free for 14 days.

⚠️ Legal notice: this article summarises a court ruling for informational purposes and does not constitute legal advice. The ruling is not final; a cassation appeal for the unification of doctrine is available.

Sources: Basque High Court ruling 2591/2026 (ECLI:ES:TSJPV:2026:2591), Royal Decree 1561/1995 on special working-time arrangements, and articles 34 and 35 of the Workers’ Statute.