Following the ECJ’s preliminary ruling in case C-587/20, the Danish Eastern High Court has ruled that a politically elected sector convenor of a trade union was protected against discrimination on the grounds of age under the Danish Anti-Discrimination Act.

The Supreme Court of the Slovak Republic (Najvyšší súd Slovenskej republiky) has ruled that the situations described in a collective agreement which justify a further extension of a fixed-term employment relationship must justify the temporary nature of their performance. The collective agreement must also specify the reasons for the temporary need to carry out those works. It is not allowed that the employer states in the employment contract the reason for the renewal of the fixed-term employment relationship merely by reference to the fact that the employee is performing the works defined in the collective agreement without stating a substantive reason satisfying the justification for doing so.

The obligation to provide workers who use display screen equipment with a special corrective appliance may be met by the direct provision of the appliance to the worker by the employer or by reimbursement of the necessary expenses incurred by the worker, but not by the payment of a general salary supplement to the worker, found the Court of Appeal following an ECJ ruling.

An Irish Workplace Relations Commission (‘WRC’) decision has provided guidance on the right of European Works Council (‘EWC’) members to appropriate training and expert advice and assistance.

The Austrian Supreme Court has ruled that it is a transfer of an undertaking where workers employed by a temporary employment agency are later re-employed by a new temporary employment agency and hired out to the same user undertaking. The plaintiff employee was found to have an ongoing employment relationship with the new temporary employment agency.

This article deals with the aftermath of the ECJ’s CCOO judgment (14 May 2019, C-55/18), which has been a major issue in various EU jurisdictions. The article consists of two parts. This first part introduces the case, its primary consequences in Germany and deals with a comparison of legal requirements throughout Europe. The second part will discuss some particular consequences in Germany.

This article deals with the aftermath of the ECJ’s CCOO judgment (14 May 2019, C-55/18), which has been a major issue in various EU jurisdictions. The article consists of two parts. This second part discusses some particular consequences in Germany.

The German Federal Administrative Court (Bundesverwaltungsgericht, ‘BVerwG’) has held that break times under stand-by duty are not automatically classified as working time within the meaning of Article 2(1) of the Working Time Directive 2003/88/EC (the ‘Directive’).
Qualifying stand-by duty as working time requires that the worker’s obligation to be on call significantly restricts their possibilities to freely organize the time in which their professional services are not needed and to pursue their own interests from an objective point of view. This must be assessed in each individual case.
According to the BVerwG, Section 5(2) Sentence 1 No. 2 of the Working Hours Ordinance (Arbeitszeitverordnung, ‘AZV’) which regulates the crediting of break times to working hours is, in its current version, incompatible with the concept of working time under Union law within the meaning of Article 2(1) of the Directive and therefore must not be applied.

A worker involved in the EU-funded ‘Turkey III’ project acted as a whistleblower, alerting to potential passive corruption with an audit contract, at a time when Belgian law had not implemented Directive (EU) 2019/1937 on the protection of persons who report breaches of Union law (the ‘Whistleblowing Directive’). The Labour Tribunal of Brussels recognized her whistleblower status and deemed her dismissal for serious cause retaliatory and so manifestly unreasonable.

It was not necessary for the aid measure of Denmark and Sweden in favour of the airline SAS to benefit all undertakings that suffered damages caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.

The pension supplement granted by Spain solely to mothers who are recipients of an invalidity pension, when they have two or more children, to the exclusion of fathers in a comparable situation, was likely to constitute direct discrimination on the ground of sex, contrary to the directive on equal payment.

A worker who was unlawfully dismissed and then reinstated in his or her employment, is entitled to paid annual leave for the period between the date of the dismissal and the date of his or her reinstatement, as he or she is already entitled, under national law, to wage compensation during that period.

National legislation which does not require an employer to consult individually the workers affected by projected collective redundancies, where those workers have not appointed workers’ representatives, and which does not require those workers to appoint such representatives, is not precluded, provided that that legislation makes it possible, in circumstances beyond the control of those workers, to guarantee the full effect of Directive 98/59/EC.

When national rules against overlapping with regard to independent benefits are applicable, it is allowed for a Member State to provide, in its legal system, for the purpose of calculating the amount of benefit to be paid, either that the total amount of income taken into account by those national rules must be divided by the number of benefits concerned or that it is appropriate to divide by that same number the proportion of income which exceeds the ceiling in respect of overlapping laid down by those national rules.

National legislation which makes the payment of additional remuneration for part-time workers and comparable full-time workers uniformly contingent on the same number of working hours being exceeded in a given activity give rise to less favourable treatment of part-time workers, which is contrary to EU law, unless such treatment is justified on objective grounds.