Dressing times to be paid in the pay packet if the clothing is imposed by the employer
The tasks performed are irrelevant. However, 'socially accepted' dress codes do not trigger the right
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Key points
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Dressing time must also be paid for specialised technicians and not only for continuity of care shift workers and operating room attendants. This was established, overturning the pronouncements of the judges of merit, by the labour section of the Court of Cassation in Order 25034/2025.
The affair
.The appellants,118 drivers, had been excluded from the enjoyment of this right by the court of first instance and the court of appeal for two reasons. Firstly, since they were not shift workers in the continuity of care sector like, for example, nurses, it would have been possible for them to wear and remove their uniforms during working hours. In other words, in the absence of hourly overlap with previous and subsequent shifts, dressing and undressing would have to take place within the perimeter of the shift. Secondly, the first instance had held that only health care workers and technicians engaged in assistance were entitled to payment for the ten minutes necessary to put on and undress their working clothes. The appellants, 118 drivers, were therefore excluded from this possibility.
The Reasons of the Supreme Court
.The Supreme Court, on the contrary, emphasised that the right to the retribution of 'suit time' does not only concern continuity of care staff and operating theatre staff organised in shifts, but also technical operators. It is not relevant, according to the Court of Legitimacy, that the drivers perform their work outside the hospital premises nor that, not being in a continuity of care regime, they can put on and take off their uniform during their shift. What matters is not the abstract obligation, but the practice.
Specifically, it must be considered whether the suit time was included in the plaintiffs' working hours: if not, after an estimate of the time required for dressing and undressing, that time must be paid. This is regardless of whether the work is performed in shifts, in contact with patients or within a hospital. The only preliminary issue, the Court explains, is whether wearing a particular type of clothing (uniforms, special fabrics, etc.) is an obligation imposed by the employer, and provided that the required clothing is different from what is 'socially accepted or acceptable' in everyday life (a dress code, therefore, is outside these standards).
