Christmas, the days between the years – for many people this is the time when they put their feet up. Where they eat cookies by candlelight, where they meet friends and relatives, and finally read a book again. Or where they go on vacation, which is just another way to relax.
During this contemplative time, some people may remember that there are people who work on the holidays: the doctor who calls the emergency services, police officers and firefighters who also come out in the quiet of the night – they become reliable (and rightly so). praised every year. What gets missed, however, is that most people who have to work on holidays like Christmas and New Year’s work in pretty precarious conditions. They earn poorly and work a lot of overtime – often unpaid. This is the result of a request from members of the Bundestag from the Left to the federal government South German newspaper is present.
3.7 million employees, i.e. around one in ten employees, had to work on Sundays and public holidays in 2022 – the last available data is from this year. Around two fifths of them earn between 1,250 and 2,250 euros net per month, another fifth even less. Most work in the hotel industry (43.5 percent), many in the catering industry (41.3 percent) – i.e. where guests flock on public holidays to have a good time and to be served. At the same time, these are also the sectors in which a particularly large amount of additional work has to be done: the Institute for Labor Market and Occupational Research lists 303 million overtime hours in its working time calculation for the transport, trade and hospitality sectors, 159 million of which were not paid.
Left-wing MP Susanne Ferschl, who is behind the request, criticizes this “Christmas drudgery” and demands that people finally have to be paid better. “The traffic light must change and clearly show the red card to precarious employment and unpaid overtime.” The minimum wage, which will be 12.41 euros from January 1, 2024, must rise to 14 euros, demands Ferschl. In addition, more employers would have to pay according to the tariff again. In order to achieve this, Labor Minister Hubertus Heil introduced the Collective Bargaining Compliance Act last spring, but it has not yet been passed. Ferschl also demands that the government ensure that all companies record their employees’ working hours electronically. The planned law provides exceptions for small businesses, for example.
Another finding from the Left inquiry shows that there is a great need for improvement when it comes to working hours: According to the working time calculation, a total of 1.44 billion overtime hours were worked across all sectors in Germany in 2022, which is 150 million hours more than estimated. And 839 million of those hours aren’t even paid. Changing that would be a good resolution for the new year for the federal government and employers.