In Austria is a public holiday arrangements for good Friday, the employees of certain religious groups are preferred, not legal. The decided by the ECJ, and spoke of a “discriminatory scheme”.
The European court of justice (ECJ) has considered applicable in Austria good Friday-public holiday arrangements for workers as discriminatory and tilted. The granting of a paid celebration is tags primary-only for Evangelical Christians, a forbidden discrimination on the basis of Religion, decided by the ECJ. Businesses can now be required that all employees have the same rights.
The good Friday in predominantly Catholic Austria, only for members of the Evangelical churches of the Augsburg and Helvetic confession, of the old Catholic Church and the Evangelical Methodist Church is a paid holiday. Thus, the particularly high importance of the day should be taken into account, as the ECJ recalled.
If you work, you will have a wage claim in a Extra. Against this provision, an Employee of an Austrian detective Agency, does not belong to any of those four churches turned. He wanted to claim the holiday pay for good Friday in 2015 from his employer before the Austrian courts, explained to the ECJ.
ECJ sees a “discriminatory scheme”
The ECJ gave the man the right. The Austrian legislation constituted a direct discrimination on grounds of Religion, it said in a statement. The court pointed out in the explanatory Memorandum, inter alia, that a worker may come only by the formal affiliation of those four churches in the enjoyment of a holiday. It was not necessary that he must meet to the day actually, “a religious duty”.
The European court of justice has overturned a regulation in Austria, to grant good Friday, only members of certain religions as a paid holiday.
duty of care of the employer
Rather him be free to make use of the day “at his convenience”, for example, recreation and leisure. To safeguard the freedom of religion, such a free day, it was not necessary. Because of the freedom of religion will be worn in Austria for nationals of other religion in other manner, argued the ECJ. It is a employer’s duty of care existed. This would allow employees, under certain circumstances, to remove themselves for the duration of certain religious rites, of the work.
entitlement to paid public holiday
as Long as Austria does not have the regulation changed, you need to grant private employers now request workers of other denominations for good Friday is a public holiday, concluded the judges in Luxembourg. If the employer refused this, he must pay you the holiday pay.
(AZ: C-193/17)
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