VOW's associate Gautier Busschaert has published a new article in legal journal 'Orientations' on the consequences of the landmark CJEU judgement of 14 May 2019 (C-55/18, Federación de servicios de Comisiones Obreras (CCOO) v Deutsche Bank SAE) for Belgian labour law.
In the CCOO v Deutsche Bank judgment, the Court of Justice of the European Union decided that, in order to ensure the effectiveness of the rights provided for in the Working Time Directive (2003/88/EC) and the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the EU, Member States must require employers to set up an objective, reliable and accessible system that makes it possible to measure each worker's daily working time. Read our summary here.
In his article, Gautier investigates whether the Belgian working time rules are compliant with this case law and whether this leads to the introduction of a new obligation to register working time in Belgium. He also looks at the possibility for Belgian courts to follow the case law of the CJEU in the absence of an explicit rule set by the Belgian legislation.
In fact, the Labour court of appeal of Brussels has very recently ordered an employer to pay the overtime hours which an ex-employee claimed to have performed, as there was no objective, reliable and accessible sytem to register working time.
The article follows a dedicated Employment Forum organised by VOW on 25 June and 2 July 2019.
"This judgement requires a radical change of course for Belgian legislation, in order to impose the setting up of a working time registration system which is general, objective, reliable and accessible.” - Gautier Busschaert
You can find Gautier's article "L'arrêt de la Cour de justice « CCOO c. Deutsche Bank » du 14 mai 2019. Vers un système général d'enregistrement du temps de travail en Belgique ? in Orientations 2020, n° 6, 2-15.