Holidays for all

Labor law

The European Court of Justice has already embarrassed German holiday law in the past. This has led to a distinction being made in German individual employment contracts between the statutory minimum leave of 24 days and the additional leave usually granted (usually 4-6 days). The statutory minimum leave is subject to the rules of the European Court of Justice and is thus in a way privileged.

Under previous German law, an employee's holiday entitlement lapsed if it was not taken by 31 March of the following year. The ECJ already saw this as discriminating against employees on long-term sick leave, who would thus lose their holiday entitlement through no fault of their own. With the decisions C-518/20 and C 120-21 of 22.09.2022, the ECJ goes even further: in order for the holiday entitlement to lapse at all, the employer must first request the employee to take the holiday. This will certainly lead to several jour fixes in the German HR departments, where each employee will be informed of his or her individual leave entitlement, with a request to take it before the end of the leave year.

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