Employment Court Cologne, 02.07.2014, Case No.: 14 Ga 65/14
Employees who, due to their school-age children, are forced to take their vacation during school holidays may face the recurring problem that the available vacation periods have already been allocated to other employees.
However, if an employee’s vacation request is repeatedly denied by the employer, the employee can have this decision reviewed in court.
All statutory vacation entitlements are regulated in the Federal Vacation Act (BUrlG).
With regard to the timing of vacations, Section 7 (1) BUrlG stipulates that when determining the timing of vacation, the employee’s vacation preferences must be taken into account unless urgent operational reasons or the vacation requests of other employees, which deserve priority for social reasons, stand in the way.
Thus, if it becomes evident to the employee that the employer has given priority to the vacation wishes of other employees who should not be given priority based on social criteria, the affected employee can have the employer’s vacation decision reviewed by the competent labor court, for example, by way of an injunction.
In the case mentioned above, the employee’s vacation request had been rejected several times, so the employee sued the employer in the Employment Court Cologne by way of an interim injunction for the approval of the vacation.
Facts of the Court Case:
Employee with children submits vacation requests for statutory school holidays
The plaintiff employee submitted various vacation requests for the summer and winter holidays to the defendant employer.
All of these vacation periods fell within the statutory school holidays, as the plaintiff was the father of school-age children.
Employer informs employee that vacation slots are already filled
Although the defendant was aware of this, he denied all of the plaintiff’s vacation requests with the simple statement that the available vacation slots had already been allocated in consultation with the works council.
The defendant neither specified which employees were involved nor clarified why these employees were to be given priority for social reasons.
Employment Court Cologne Ruling:
The court found the employer’s rejection to be insufficient
The Employment Court Cologne sided with the plaintiff and approved the plaintiff’s vacation.
In the court’s opinion, the defendant’s general assertion that the employees given priority were “health-impaired” employees or employees with school-age children who had not received vacation during the summer holidays the previous year was not sufficient.
Employees with children should be given priority when allocating vacation
The defendant should have instead specified which employees had already applied for and been granted vacation for which specific period and why these employees deserved priority over the plaintiff from a social perspective.
Source: Employment Court Cologne
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