An employer may require an employee to remain available outside normal working hours and ready to perform work if required (on-call duty). However, on-call duty time cannot be unlimited. In particular, an employer may not require an employee to be \u201cavailable by phone\u201d at all times outside their normal working hours.<\/p>\n
On-call duty time must not violate the employee\u2019s right to daily or weekly rest (Article 151\u2075 \u00a72 of the Labour Code). Therefore, if an employee\u2019s daily working time standard is 8 hours<\/strong>, taking into account the minimum daily rest period (11 hours \u2013 Article 132 \u00a71 of the Labour Code<\/strong>), the on-call duty period may not exceed 5 hours<\/strong>. The hours during which an employee is required to be on call should be clearly specified by the employer.<\/p>\n A breach of these above provisions may be classified as a violation of working time regulations. Such a violation constitutes an offence against employee rights (Article 281 \u00a71 point 5 of the Labour Code), and in extreme cases may also constitute a criminal offence (Article 218 \u00a71a of the Criminal Code). An employee may also claim compensation for an infringement of their personal rights.<\/p>\n