On May 12, the mandatory control of working time comes into force

Until now, the obligation to have a record of the working day was limited to overtime and part-time contracts. However, as of May 12, this obligation extends to the working hours of all company workers.

On March 12, 2019, Royal Decree Law 08/2019 was published in the BOE (information here), urgent social protection measures and the fight against job insecurity during the working day, which will be mandatory for all types of companies as of May 12.

In its article 10, which modifies article 34 of the Consolidated Text of the Workers' Statute Law, rewording its section 7 and adding a section 9, it indicates that the company will guarantee the daily recording of the working day, which must include the specific start and end time of each person's work day without prejudice to the time flexibility established in this article.

The standard imposes on companies the duty to “guarantee” the daily recording of the working day, a recording that must include the specific start and end time of each worker's working day. Furthermore, they must keep this record for 4 years and facilitate the right of access to workers, their representatives or the Labor Inspection.

Time control regardless of the contractual modality

The new regulations do not modify the provisions of RDL 16/2013, of December 20, which already indicated that all companies were obliged to record the daily hours of workers with part-time contracts, and provide them with a monthly summary of the hours actually worked. This record had to be kept by the company for four years.

The new Decree establishes that all companies must have a time control system for all workers on the staff regardless of the contractual modality and, in order to comply with the standard, the record of the daily workday must include the time entry and exit of the worker.

A priori, the record will be the same as that of part-time workers, although in this case there is no obligation to provide workers with a monthly summary of hours actually worked.

It should be noted that there is no specific mechanism imposed for registration.

Taking into account the characteristics of each company and work center, nothing prevents them from being manual or technological. What is required is that it be reliable and managed objectively. That is, the registration method that we adopt must guarantee its reliability and invariability.