English News

In a widely acclaimed ruling of 14 May 2019 (C-55/18), the European Court of Justice (ECJ) ruled that workers' working hours must be fully recorded.

In the opinion of the European Court of Justice, the recording of overtime hours only is not sufficient. On the contrary, employers in the European Union (EU) are obliged to record the working hours of their employees in full. According to this, all EU states must "set up a system with which the daily working time can be measured". To justify its decision, the ECJ referred not only to the Working Time Directive but also to the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the EU. These guaranteed "the basic right of every employee to a limitation of maximum working hours and to daily and weekly rest periods". This could not be guaranteed without a system for recording working time (see also the attached press release of the European Court of Justice of 14 May 2019).

Apart from some special laws such as the Minimum Wage Act and the Act to Combat Illegal Employment, in Germany only working time exceeding eight hours a day has to be recorded. According to the German Working Hours Act, an employee is generally not allowed to work more than eight hours a day on weekdays - in exceptional cases up to ten hours. In addition, a rest period of eleven hours between two shifts must be maintained. The European Working Time Directive also provides for a maximum of 48 hours per week.

Many labour law experts see a new wave of bureaucracy rolling towards EU companies. The responsible Federal Minister of Labour, Hubertus Heil, first wants to check whether, following the ruling of the European Court of Justice, changes in the law are also necessary in Germany. In view of the clear requirements of the ECJ, we urgently recommend setting up systems for recording the daily working time of employees, where these are not already in place. Please find our Excel-based work sheet for internal documentation of working time in the absence of other systems.

Please do not hesitate to contact us for any questions:

Björn Christian Gerow

Steuerberater

Fachberater für internationales Steuerrecht

Phone: +49-211-17257-15

E-Mail: b.c.gerow@egsz.de