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German workers should be paid for overtime: EU court

Answering emails during your 'Feierabend'? According to a European Court of Justice ruling on Tuesday, this time should be recorded and paid.

Published: 15 May 2019 10:03 CEST
German workers should be paid for overtime: EU court
Employees working overtime should be paid for the extra hours, the EJC ruled on Tuesday. Photo: Depositphotos/Dragon Images

Employers in the EU will be obliged to systematically record the daily working hours of their employees, the European Court of Justice ruled on Tuesday. That means that checking emails during breakfast or taking a phone call with one's boss during the Feierabend will be officially considered work.

German employers are outraged, while trade unions are celebrating. But what exactly is changing now?

SEE ALSO: Why every country should get on board with the German Feierabend

Just what did the ECJ decide?

The core of the ruling is as follows: all EU states must oblige employers to set up an “objective, reliable and accessible system” to record the daily working time of every employee.

The case stemmed from a complaint in Spain that Deutsche Bank SAE should be obligated to the record the time logged each day by staff members, even in typical “off-hours” as they didn't feel they were being fairly compensated. The requirement now applies in Germany and all EU member states.

It's yet to be determined exactly how the ruling will be carried out in Germany. Every individual member state can decide how exactly the system will be implemented, including whether individual activities can be omitted if they can't be precisely measured.

What is the purpose of the ruling?

The ECJ insists on EU workers' rights for the protection of health. Every employee has a fundamental right to a defined number of maximum working hours, they say, and to daily and weekly rest periods.

Only if the entire working time is systematically recorded can overtime be quantified, states the ruling. This is the only way in which employees can also assert their rights.

The number of overtime hours in Germany in 2017 was 2.1 billion, half of them unpaid, reports the Federal Government.

SEE ALSO: 100 years later, Germany calls the 8-hour work day into question

What is the legal situation so far?

“The law already stipulates that working hours in excess of regular working hours, i.e. overtime, must be recorded,” labour market researcher Enzo Weber of the Institute for Labour Market and Occupational Research in Nuremberg told FOCUS Online.

“For this purpose, the regular working time must be known,” he said. This means that employers would actually have to determine the normal working hours, and that nothing would change in practice.

What does this mean for German employees?

“All working hours must now be recorded,” Annelie Buntenbach, member of the board of the German Federation of Trade Unions, told DPA. “We are very happy.”

From the unions' point of view, the ruling does not prevent flexible working hours, or working from home. With modern tools such as apps, time can also be recorded anywhere for employees.

But the legally capped daily working hours and the statutory rest periods of at least eleven hours should be easier to enforce, she said.

“If you make another business call or answer emails at nine in the evening, the working time is to be documented as such,” explained Buntenbach. With a rest period of eleven hours “one must not start again before eight the next morning.”

Dr. Sören Langner, partner and specialist lawyer for labour law in Berlin, took a more critical view of the ruling: “For employers, recording daily and weekly working hours means a new bureaucracy monster and the temporary end of working hours based on trust.”

And how did employers react?

Not surprisingly, many German employers have reacted badly to the EJC judgement.

The Federal Association of German Employers' Associations (BDA) complained that this decision appeared antiquated. “We employers are against the general reintroduction of the time clock in the 21st century,” they said.

The decision was made to the detriment of workers who want to work flexibly, they added, stating that it goes against the typical honour system based on salaried employees working a certain amount of time, but not having to report where and when the work was carried out.

Vocabulary

Ruling  – (das) Urteil  

European Court of Justice – (der) Europäische Gerichtshof

The core (of a ruling/an idea) – (der) Kern

Overtime – (die) Überstunden

We're aiming to help our readers improve their German by translating vocabulary from some of our news stories. Did you find this article useful? Do you have any suggestions? Let us know.

Überstunden
Europäische Gerichtshof
Europäische Gerichtshof
Europäische Gerichtshof
Europäische Gerichtsho

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TAXES

EXPLAINED: How do you close down a freelance business in Germany?

Leaving the country? Got a steady job offer you can’t say no to? Winding down your self-employment activities in Germany still requires taking a few bureaucratic steps.

Published: 15 May 2024 09:07 CEST
Updated: 15 May 2024 10:57 CEST
EXPLAINED: How do you close down a freelance business in Germany?

Striking out on your own as self-employed is one of the scariest – and potentially most rewarding things – you can do. In Germany, it also comes with its own set of rules around tax and social insurance.

But there are times when – for whatever reason – it may be time to move on.

Whether it’s because you have an exciting new opportunity or things haven’t quite worked out the way you hoped due to economic pressures – winding down self-employment the right way is crucial to avoid gaps in your health and social insurance coverage in Germany.

The steps you have to take are also a bit different depending on if you are new self-employed (Freiberufler) or have a trade licence (Gewerbe) – with some steps not being necessary for new self-employed.

Trade licences are automatically cancelled if the licenced person dies or the company ceases to have financial assets.

Resigning the trade licence or declaring it dormant

New self-employed people like writers or speakers don’t need to go through this step, as they don’t need a trade licence.

Those who have a trade licence will need to contact their competent local authority and resign it, or declare it dormant (withdrawing the licence). If you’re only winding down temporarily, declaring your trade licence dormant instead of de-registering completely may save you a few headaches later.

You may have to do this in person at your local trade office – or Gewerbeamt – depending on whether your local authority allows online de-registration or not. You’ll need to bring your official ID, trade licence, confirmation of registration and possibly an extract from the trade register. Fees are dependent on your local authority and can range from being free to €25.

You can declare the date you intend to resign the licence – which can be in the future. To ensure no gaps in your social insurance protections, including health insurance, set this date for the day before whatever comes next. For example, if you’re starting a new job on January 1st set the date for your trade licence to expire as December 31st.

The trade office will typically notify your local tax office, so you won’t need to do this yourself.

Notifying your tax office

If you’ve had to resign your trade licence, you can skip this step as your trade office will do it for you. If you’re a Freiberufler without a trade licence you need to resign, you’ll have to notify your local Finanzamt, or tax office, yourself.

Luckily, this is a pretty easy step.

First, you need to decide whether you’re ceasing operations completely or wanting to continue them part-time. If you’re ceasing completely, you’ll end up surrendering your self-employed tax number.

You don’t have to do this though. If you think you may still carry on some self-employed business as a side gig, you can inform the tax office that you intend to do so and keep your number.

At that point, the tax office should treat you as a Kleinunternehmer – or a small business making less than €22,000 a year. Having this status means that you will not need to pre-pay taxes or charge VAT on your invoices for freelance side projects.

If you derive any income from your side gig in the future though, you’ll still have to file a tax return.

READ ALSO: Can I have a freelance side gig as an employee in Germany?

Notifying your health insurance

While different private plans in Germany may have different notification requirements, if you have public health insurance in Germany, you should notify them that you’re winding up your self-employed business. Specifically, advise them exactly what date you’re wrapping up.

Again, this should be right before you start your new job or leave the country, to ensure no gaps in your coverage.

If ending your self-employment in Germany, take care to ensure that there’s no gaps in your health insurance coverage, by giving the right date for when you’re ceasing activity. You don’t want to be caught without coverage. Photo by Stephen Andrews on Unsplash

If you are in an artistic profession and thus pay pension, health, and nursing insurance through the Artist Social Insurance Fund (KSK), you should also advise them as well. If you’re leaving self-employment completely, you can typically give notice to KSK as to when it’s ending.

If you’re not, and intend to still make money freelancing as a side gig, they should know this as well. In this event, you’ll no longer pay health or care insurance through KSK, as this is covered through your main job.

You may need to continue to pay pension contributions through KSK based on the amount of money you still make from self-employed activities — depending on how much of them you continue.

KSK: How creative freelancers can pay less for German health insurance

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