Working time regulation, if a public holiday happens to be a day off

If a public holiday happens to be a day off, mostly this will have the result, that in the case of a five-day week employees have the right to another day off. This is due to the method used in the Working Time Regulations to calculate the working time. According to this law a public holiday that falls on a day-off reduces the working time. In practice the employer mostly granted another free day in such cases, if a public holiday happens to be a day-off. Working time patterns which are mandatory for the employees can in general result from working time regulations or from a collective agreement or from a announcement on working time patterns and working time models. Sometimes this is carried out by a graph or by a plan for individual employees or for groups of employees. In some cases such working time patterns are general and applied by the complete company. Irrespective of existing working time patterns they are always based on a correctly calculated working time within the respective working time period. These working time patterns are calculated according to art. 130 Labour Act and in the case of complete working time models art. 138 Labour Act must be applied.

Art. 130 Labour Act relates to a principal rule to calculate employee’s working time as follows:

• multiplying 40 hours by the number of weeks of the working time period,
• then adding the product of 8 hours and the number of days between Monday and Friday remaining until the end of the working time period,
• the working time will be reduced by 8 hours – for every public holiday within the working time period, which does not fall on a Sunday.

The working time calculated in this way in general results in granting the employee another day-off, if a public holiday (mentioned in the Act on public holidays) happens to be a day-off within a five-days week. In most of the companies with a five-days week Saturday is the day-off and the public holiday typically falls on a Saturday. In November we had such a situation.

Day-off for part-time working employees

The working time of part-time employees will be calculated by analogy with the working time of a full-time employee. This calculation is based on a assumed working time period. In such a situation the obligation to grant another day-off will come into effect if a public holiday falls on a free Saturday and if the employee works part-time (proportional to a full-time employee) on a daily basis from Monday to Friday. But if instead the employee works only on certain days a week and the daily working time varies the obligation to grant another free day depends on a comparison of the regular working time with the working time pattern of the employee.

Source: Gazeta Podatkowa, Nov. 3rd, 2014