ral Labor Court, May 15, 2013, Case No.: 10 AZR 325/12
The employment contract forms the basis for the employee’s work within the employer’s business. In addition to possibly applicable statutory, company, and collective bargaining regulations (such as collective agreements or works agreements), it plays a fundamental role in assessing the mutual claims and obligations of the contracting parties (employer and employee).
The following topics are typically included in an employment contract, among other contents:
- General description of duties
- Working hours
- Scope of the employer’s right to issue instructions
- Location of work performance
- Compensation arrangement
- Vacation arrangements
- Notice periods
- Limitation periods
- Penalty clauses
- Contractual and post-contractual non-competition clauses
- Reservation of voluntariness
- Reservation of revocability
If any of the necessary elements are not covered in the employment contract, this can lead to problems for both the employer and the employee in the event of a legal dispute.
In the case mentioned above, the parties to the employment contract had not agreed on the working hours, and thus disputed their extent.
Facts of the Court Case
The employee did not work enough according to the employer’s view.
The plaintiff was employed by the defendant as a “non-tariff employee” and received an annual salary of approximately 95,000 euros gross.
According to the employment contract, the plaintiff was required to “work even outside of regular working hours.” The contract did not contain further regulations regarding working hours.
By autumn 2010, the defendant claimed that nearly 700 hours of negative time had accumulated. Since October 2010, the defendant had therefore requested the plaintiff to maintain a daily working time of at least 7.6 hours or the company-standard weekly working time of 38 hours. The plaintiff did not comply with this.
As a result, the employer reduced the employee’s salary.
The defendant then reduced the plaintiff’s salary by a total of approximately 7,000 euros gross until January 2011, because the plaintiff, according to the defendant, did not fulfill her work obligations completely and, for example, worked only 19.8 hours in December and 5.5 hours in January.
The plaintiff sued against this reduction, arguing that she was not contractually obliged to work 38 hours per week.
According to the employment contract, she was neither required to be at the company on specific days nor at specific times. Her work was also not to be measured in time units.
Rather, she fulfilled her work obligations regardless of the time aspect by completing the tasks assigned to her by the defendant. Therefore, the defendant had to pay her full salary regardless of the number of hours worked.
Judgment of the Federal Labor Court
The BAG followed the opinion of the lower courts and ruled in favor of the employer.
According to the BAG, the employment contract of the parties implied the company-standard working hours as the measure for the work to be performed.
There were no indications for an agreement on a work obligation not measured by time.
The employer does not have to pay for non-performance.
Thus, the defendant was not obliged to pay remuneration for periods in which the plaintiff had not worked.
Source: Federal Labor Court
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