Holiday entitlement for a 4-day week.
August 3, 2009 | 20,00 EUR | answered by Andreas Scholz
Hello,
After my parental leave, I received an updated employment contract. It states that I am entitled to 27 days of vacation. The contract was signed in December 2008. Now the HR department says they made a mistake and I am only entitled to about 21 days.
Colleagues in full-time positions have different numbers of vacation days per year. Out of 10 employees, 2 have 30 days and the other 7 have 27 days.
I have planned my vacations for this year based on the vacation days agreed upon in the employment contract.
How should I proceed? Should I accept the change in the employment contract?
Thank you,
Spieth
Dear questioner,
If the employment contract has already been signed, a new agreement would only be possible through a new contract.
In your case, I assume that the vacation days have been mistakenly based on a full-time position.
However, regardless: Subsequent changes require a new employment contract.
For this purpose, the existing employment contract would need to be terminated. However, this can only happen if there are legally regulated reasons, such as for operational reasons. If such reasons do not exist, the employer cannot unilaterally terminate the contract, so the employer would remain bound by the contract.
Only through mutual agreement would a new employment contract with adjusted vacation days be possible. There is no obligation to accept the new contract.
Perhaps by involving the works council, you could reach an amicable agreement, for example, that the holiday entitlement for the current year remains and for future years this entitlement is adjusted accordingly. This would be a solution that would be fair to all parties involved and maintain peace between employees and employer.
The differences in vacation days among colleagues may be based on changes in collective bargaining agreements.
Regarding the calculation of the vacation entitlement:
When calculating your vacation entitlement, the entitlement should be calculated according to the current collective bargaining agreement regulations.
For part-time employment, the vacation entitlement is calculated as follows:
Nominal number of vacation days (according to collective bargaining agreement 27/30 days, but at least 24 days/year for a six-day week, § 3 BUrlbG)
divided by
Workdays per week (as stipulated in the employment contract)
multiplied by the actual workdays per week.
I hope this information has been helpful. If you have any further questions, please feel free to ask.
Best regards,
Andreas Scholz, attorney
