Travel, Lodging and Transport

2.1 Travel, Lodging and Transport

(a) Place of Employment
All employees, with the exception of locally engaged labour, shall be taken into employment at the employer’s established place of business, that is to say a principal or branch office, either of which shall be defined as “shop”.  Shop Recruited employees are liable to be transferred to work on any site on which the employer has a contract.  An employee’s place of employment shall therefore be defined within the Written Particulars of Main Terms of Employment (see Appendix 1), in accordance with the Employment Rights Act 1996.

(b) Travel time covered by these rules shall be paid as per current National Agreement (see Section B - Appendix 1).

(c) Transport - Use of Employee’s Car for Employer’s Business
An employer, by agreement with an employee, may pay a mileage allowance where the employee agrees to use his own car for business use.  The employee shall have appropriate insurance cover.  On any day when such a mileage allowance is paid in respect of a journey or journeys between an employee’s home (or lodgings) and his employer’s place of business or a site at which the employee is required by his employer to attend, travel allowance will not also be payable.

(d) Shop Based Employees - “Shop Rate”
Employees who are required to book on and off at the employer’s shop shall be entitled to time from booking on until booking off, with overtime if the time so booked exceeds the normal working day.  They shall also be entitled to be reimbursed, if transport is not provided free of charge, the cost of any actual fare reasonably incurred when travelling to and from site or sites.

(e) Locally Engaged Labour
Where an Employer does not have a shop within a 25 mile radius of the job he can engage labour living within a 25 mile radius of that job.  Employees shall receive the Travelling Time and Travel Allowances in accordance with Clause (f) but with the exception of “home” being substituted for “shop” in Clause (g).
Locally engaged labour living within a 25 mile radius of the job can be transferred to other jobs within that radius without affecting their entitlements under this rule.  Employees transferred to a job outside that radius may be entitled to Lodging Allowance in accordance with the Rules.

Note: 
(i) Upon engagement, the site upon which the operative is placed is formally his place of work and must be declared (as provided for under the amended SJIB statement of particular terms of employment) to comply with the requirements of the Employment Rights Act 1996.
(ii) When a redundancy situation occurs at “the place where the employee was so employed” (Employment Rights Act 1996) that place is, for the shop recruited operative, the entire work area covered by the shop of recruitment and, for the site recruited operative, the site of recruitment, and selection for redundancy must be made on that basis, within the parameters of the company’s agreed selection procedures and the statutory rights of those concerned.
(iii) It is advisable that an employer should make the points of law set out under (i) and (ii) clear to the employee, particularly the locally engaged employee, when he accepts work as a site recruited operative.
(iv) In the event of a dispute arising, each case will be considered in the light of justice, equity and the merits of the individual case.

(f) Employees Who Travel Daily - “Travel Rate”
Employees who are required to start and finish at the normal starting and finishing times on the job shall be paid Travel Rate.  On jobs lasting more than one day, the employee shall go the first day and return the last day in his employer’s time.  On intervening days he shall travel both ways in his own time.  An employee travelling daily and working away from the employer’s place of business shall receive the Travel Allowance and Travel Time as shown in Section B - Appendix 1.

(g) Travelling Time and Allowances

(i) Travel Time and Allowances
Employees who are required to start and finish at the normal starting and finishing time on jobs which are located over 15 miles and up to and including 75 miles from the shop in a straight line shall receive the payment for travelling time and, where transport is not provided by the employer, travel allowance as shown in Section B - Appendix 1.
Distances between shop and site shall be measured in a straight line on the ordnance survey map but, where natural barriers intervene, the distances shall be measured via the nearest intersection or crossing point.

(ii) Provisions of Travel Allowance
Where an employer provides transport free of charge employees provided with such transport shall not be entitled to travel allowance.  An operative who considers that the transport provided by his employer is unsuitable may pursue a complaint through the Grievance Procedure.
Employers can satisfy the provision of travel allowance by the provision of a periodic travel pass.

(iii) Protracted Journeys
On protracted journeys the employee shall be entitled to the basic travel rate for every hour (up to a maximum of 7.5 hours per day) he is travelling on a train, ship or other conveyance.  Should a journey be interrupted or delayed and the employee is provided with suitable accommodation, he shall be paid for the standard working hours of a day at the basic travel rate while so held up.

(h) Employees Who Lodge

(i) An employee sent to a job where lodging is necessary shall receive actual fare and travelling time at basic travel rate from the employer’s shop to the job.  Similar allowances shall apply on his return except that if he leaves the job of his own free will within one clear calendar month from the date of his arrival, or is dismissed by his employer, no return fare or travelling time shall be paid.

Where the distance or nature of the job requires an employee to take lodgings, and suitable accommodation can only be obtained at a considerable distance from the site, the following rule shall apply:

(ii) Where the accommodation is located over 15 miles from the site, the employee shall receive the Travel Time and Travel Allowance as shown in Section B - Appendix 1.
On each occasion that a transport authority (whether nationally or locally) announces a change in fares, then on the same date there shall be deemed to be a promulgation of an SJIB determination requiring the revised fares also to be paid to the employees concerned, who are paid fares in accordance with these rules.