The right to paid annual leave has gained in recent years increasing importance, not only in the domestic and in international sphere but above all in the uni-European one, thanks to the progressive ...elevation of the status of this right and to the growing attention shown by jurisprudence. In an attempt to put the matter in order, the essay discusses the rich jurisprudence elaborated by the Court of Justice and the internal judges, focusing on the main issues still debated today that continue to animate the dialogue between the Courts.
This article discusses a recent decision of the Austrian Supreme Court on the period of limitation for annual leave entitlements in light of the Working Time Directive 2003/88 (WTD). In the past, the ...Supreme Court's case law has repeatedly been criticised in the literature, as the Court – based on the corresponding national provision – considered the (rather long) period of limitation after the mere passage of time to be in line with EU law. The decision under discussion has now changed this line of case law, but questions remain over the legal methodology.
Case
Austrian Supreme Court (Oberster Gerichtshof – OGH) of 27.6.2023, 8 ObA 23/23z, ECLI:AT:OGH0002:2023:008OBA00023.23Z.0627.000.
The minimum wage in the Republic of Serbia is determined on the basis of the minimum wage determined in accordance with the Labour Law, working hours and taxes and contributions paid from wages. The ...minimum wage should be the minimum amount of money, which should enable employees to meet basic living needs. Unfortunately, its amount in practice is often not enough to provide for the basic living needs of employees and their family members. The employer should pay the minimum wage when, due to business disruption, he is unable to pay a wage that would be higher than it, ie. it should be an extraordinary phenomenon in the world of labor and capital. However, the minimum wage is becoming the rule of payment for employees in many industries in the Republic of Serbia. One of the question related to the miniimum wage is whether it can be considered in accordance with the Decisions of the Government and the Socio-Economic Council as the net amount paid for the employment of all persons per hour, regardless of the legal basis of their work. This statement is suported by the used legal definition of minimum labour cost. For example, working under a contract on temporary and periodical jobs is the same as any other kind of work, even though work is conducted outside of employment relationship. According to the Law on Contributions for Complulsory Social Insurance, work within the employment relationship and work on the basis of contracts on temporary and periodical jobs are viewed equally from the perspective of contributions paid on wages. In the light of international labour standards, according to the Minimum Wage Fixing Convention No. 131 of the International Labour Organization, each member of the International Labour Organization which ratifies this Convention undertakes to establish a system of minimum wages which covers all groups of wage earners whose terms of employment are such that coverage would be appropriate. Since the Republic of Serbia has ratified this Convention, it directly applies to all groups of workers, including those hired on the basis of contracts for temporary and occasional work. Regarding the civil service system, the Law on Salaries in State Bodies and Public Servicies stipulates that the coefficient on the basis of which the basic salary of employees in state bodies and public services is determined expresses the complexity of work, responsibility, working conditions and education. The coefficient also contains an allowance in the name of compensation for food during work and recourse for the use of annual leave. The practical question arose as to whether employees who are paid the minimum wage in the general regime of labour relations are entitled to a suplement in the name of compensation for food during work and recourse for the use of annual leave, ie. whether the minimum wage in the Republic of Serbia should include these allowances. The authors will analyze the issues raised in the previous parts of the text, but also other issues related to the minimum wage and present views for their solution.
Es un hecho bien conocido que los japoneses no suelen querer disfrutar de las vacaciones anuales retribuidas. Es cierto que la forma de trabajar japonesa dista mucho del sentido común en el mundo, ...pero ¿por qué se está dando este fenómeno? Para abordar este tema, examinaremos el problema desde tres perspectivas: (1) la singularidad del propio régimen japonés de vacaciones anuales, (2) los problemas que existen sobre cómo se opera e interpreta el régimen de vacaciones, y (3) la conciencia y valores de los japoneses hacia el trabajo. Sobre la base de estos análisis, señalaremos las perspectivas y mejoras requeridas para introducir un régimen general de vacaciones anuales retribuidas a nivel mundial en Japón.
It is a well-known fact that the Japanese are very reluctant to take paid annual leave. It is true that the Japanese way of working is far from common sense in the world, but why is this phenomenon taking place? To address this issue, we will examine the problem from three perspectives: (1) the uniqueness of the Japanese annual leave regime itself, (2) the problems in how the vacation regime is operated and interpreted, and (3) the awareness and values of the Japanese towards work. Based on these analyses, we will point out the prospects and improvements required to introduce a world-matched paid annual leave regime in Japan.
The example of the case-law evolution of the Court of Justice (CJEU), concerning the correct interpretation of the requirement of “normal remuneration” to be received on basis of Article 7(1) of ...Directive 2003/88/EC during the period of annual leave and the corresponding allowance in lieu, the challenges of Slovenian courts, confronted with a rather static domestic and EU labour legislation, will be presented. Annual leave is a fundamental right of every worker in the EU, be it in private or public sectors, so its regulation on both legislative levels should be enacted with great precaution. It will be further presented that due to the implicit supranational and autonomous nature of the EU law it is nigh to impossible for the national legislators to regulate all aspects of this fundamental right as both levels of legislation “do not speak the same (normative) language”, especially with the CJEU as a constant interpretative “interloper”. In absence of uniform EU labour law interpretative alignment can only be asserted by the continuous efforts of the national judiciary.
This study estimates the causal effect of paid vacation on health. Using register data on the universe of central government employees in Sweden, I exploit an age-based rule stipulated in the ...collective agreement covering these employees. I achieve identification by combining a regression discontinuity with a difference-in-differences design to control for time-invariant differences between consecutive birth cohorts and isolate the true effect at two separate discontinuities at ages 30 and 40. The main results indicate that an increase of three paid vacation days at age 30 and four days at age 40 do not cause significant changes in health, as proxied by visits to specialized outpatient care, inpatient admissions, and long-term sick leaves. These findings challenge the anecdotal view of additional paid vacation days as an adequate means to improve workers’ health.
Résumé
Dans sa jurisprudence, le juge européen veille au respect des durées maximales du travail pour assurer la protection de la santé des travailleurs, notamment la durée maximale hebdomadaire. Il ...rappelle aux États membres qu’ils doivent imposer aux employeurs de mesurer les durées du travail. Le juge mobilise la Charte des droits fondamentaux pour assurer à chaque travailleur son droit aux congés annuels payés.
The right to annual leave as originated from the need to protect human dignity is a fundamental right for people performing work and therefore requires strong and adequate protection at the national ...level. Notwithstanding the legal discourse on placing certain entitlements in the frame of rights or freedom, this right requires legal remedies that allow its full enjoyment by assigning responsibilities and duties to the parties to the employment relationship. This manuscript aims to evaluate the Lithuanian and Polish labour legislation through the prism of their constitutional and statutory law provisions, taking into account the supranational fundamental principles related to this subject, as well as a discussion related to the scope of labour law and the level of guarantees for employed people. Therefore, since the right to health and safety needs to be fully encompassing, the subjective or objective focus of protection (the ‘per worker’ or ‘per contract’ approach) concerning cases of concurrent contracts with one or more employer(s) will be part of the discussion. This analysed topic has become a part of the extended scientific discourse related to issues of the future world of work, determined by the dissemination of atypical and novel forms of employment and their consequences: e.g. lowered social protection and precarious employment. In relation to the above point, the need for protection of health and safety of the employed constitutes the focal point for all labour protective legislation and requires a focus on issues connected with the protection of the individual rights.
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