According to the decision of the Federal Labor Court (BAG), an obligation to record working hours has been introduced in Germany. According to the German Working Hours Act, until now only overtime and Sunday work had to be documented, not the entire working time.

The BAG decision is currently the subject of intense debate in the “Traffic Light” coalition government and among labor law experts.

On Tuesday in Erfurt, the president of Germany’s highest Labor Court, Inken Gallner, justified the obligation of employers to systematically record the working hours of their employees by interpreting the German Occupational Health and Safety Act following the ruling of the so-called European Court of Justice (EuGH)

Experts expect that the landmark BAG ruling will have far-reaching effects on trust-based working time models that have been practiced thousands of times in business and administration, all the way to mobile work and home office.

With its key decision, the Federal Labor Court has launched a debate on changing the German Working Hours Act. The federal government is still working on transposing the EuGH requirements from 2019 for the introduction of objective, reliable, and accessible working time recording into German law.

Inken Gallne, presiding judge of the First Senate, referred to a paragraph in the Occupational Safety Act that obliges employers to introduce a system by which employees’ worked hours can be recorded.

– If you interpret the German Occupational Health and Safety Act according to the provisions of the European Court of Justice, then there is already an obligation to record working hours, Gallne said.

Source: Fenix-magazin / Marijana Dokoza