When nature calls in Switzerland, workers can either (try to) ignore their physiological needs, or clock out.
That’s the ruling from a Swiss court, which found that watchmaker Jean Singer & Cie SA was not required to pay workers for time spent on the toilet. The cased underlined a loophole in the country’s labor laws.
"Swiss law does not mention the right of employees to go to the toilet, even though this is a basic physiological need," the court wrote in its ruling.
Singer, apparently, is not the only company that has this rule. Two subsidiaries of the Swatch Group have, in the past, required workers to clock out when they need to relieve themselves. Those policies were reversed when the parent company was made aware of them.
The policy at Jean Singer & Cie was discovered by labor inspectors in 2021 during a site visit. The court ruled on the case in June, but the decision was not made public until last month.
The company says the policy is being misunderstood and workers have “a great deal of freedom” when they clock out. The lengths of those periods are up to the workers and there’s no pressure to tell managers why they decided to clock out.
That time, the company says, could be used to for a wide variety of purposes, including meals, a phone call, a nature walk or…well, powdering your nose.
While ruling that the requirement to clock out is not illegal, the court did ask the watchmaker to change its policies, noting that it could be discriminatory toward women.
Some government and labor officials say they’re worried the ruling could embolden other companies to consider the practice, with one citing concerns about being timed when they go to the toilet or having to bring a doctor’s note to your manager if they feel you’ve gone to the bathroom too many times in the workday.
