Embarrassing bankruptcy for Hubertus Heil (50, SPD)!
Ironically, the Minister of Labor failed to present an important law on employees’ working hours.
Specifically, it is regarding the recording of working hours. According to the judgment of the European Court of Justice (ECJ) in 2019, company bosses must precisely document the working hours of all employees. Since then, it has been clear that a corresponding law is needed. But what happened – nothing! In the last legislative period, in which Heil was already a minister, this failed due to the resistance of the coalition partner Union.
According to the ministry, the new coalition agreement of the traffic light then stipulated that it should be checked what need to be adjusted to the ECJ judgment, since there was uncertainty among experts. But once more little happened. The hanging game continued. The Minimum Wage Act should then oblige some sectors to use digital time recording, including construction, trade and gastronomy. But comprehensive regulation is something else.
NOW the Federal Labor Court (BAG) in Erfurt has intervened. And the details of a decision from September were published over the weekend: The companies can therefore no longer wait for a law of salvation. You must IMMEDIATELY record the working hours of your employees (e.g. by time clock, app, on paper).
Slap for salvation!
The Frankfurt labor law attorney Jens Jensen says to BILD: “The BAG has acted as a substitute legislator because the government has remained inactive. That does not reflect well on the Department of Labour.”
Jens Jensen is a specialist lawyer for labor law in Frankfurt
The ministry quickly uploaded a statement on the BAG decision online, in which it made it clear that the decision actually applies to all employers throughout Germany with immediate effect. Labor lawyer Jensen: “The ministry is piggybacking on the BAG decision.”
Hundreds of thousands of companies are now caught off guard and have to organize time recording measures. And that, although central details have not yet been clarified because of the missing law. One thing is clear: bosses can also leave the recording of the start, end and work breaks to the employees. According to the ministry, this can even be “handwritten” on paper.
But chaos seems pre-programmed here – the victims are company bosses AND employees.
CDU Vice Carsten Linnemann (45): “Now it’s important to find a solution that doesn’t let us suffocate in even more bureaucracy.”
Feared the next bureaucracy monster: CDU Federal Deputy Carsten Linnemann
Employer Managing Director Steffen Kampeter (59) also insists on a “legally secure and practicable” implementation.
And Minister of Labor Heil?
He informed BILD that his company would “probably make a practical proposal for the design of the recording of working hours in the Working Hours Act in the first quarter of 2023”.
Problem: Then a whopping four years have passed since the ECJ judgment …
The Ministry of Labor defends itself by saying that “the question of what legislative consequences arise from the ECJ judgment for Germany” was “controversially discussed in the literature and between the social partners”. Even the question of whether there was a need for legal regulation at all was controversial. And this “OB” has now been clarified by the Federal Labor Court.
Forward-looking policy? none…
