Leave cannot be sold

The ECJ has ruled that workers cannot cash in their annual leave if they fail to take all of it by the end of the leave year. The Dutch government published a leaflet to explain the rules on taking leave in relation to the Working Time Directive which guarantees all employees four weeks holiday annually. In it they stated that if a worker failed to take all their leave by the end of the year, they could sell it in the following leave period as long as they had the minimum four weeks in that year. However the Dutch union federation, FNV, claimed this to be in breach of the directive. The court agreed saying ‘a worker must normally be entitled to actual rest, with a view to ensuring effective protection of his safety and health’ though they admitted that circumstances may force minimum leave to be carried over.

TUPE time again

In their latest pronouncement from the minefield which is the Acquired Rights Directive, enacted in the UK via the TUPE regulations, the Court seems to have contradicted previous British judgements. Soon after the German claimant, Mr.Werhof, was transferred from Duewag to AG Freeway Traffic Systems in 1999, the works council at the new firm made a deal on grading which included a one-off payment as the company was not a member of the metalwork employers’ federation and not bound by sectoral agreements. Two years later, in 2003, the union IG Metall negotiated a wage increase for the industry. Herr Werhof went to court to obtain the difference in pay between the two deals on the basis that the directive bound the new company to implement agreements made by the old one. The ECJ decided that only the agreements in force when the staff were transferred from one firm to another could apply to the new company.