Daily rest and weekly rest are two autonomous and additional rights, even if daily rest precedes weekly rest, the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) ruled on Thursday 2 March (Case C-477/21).
In Hungary, a train driver challenged the refusal of MÁV-START, the national railway company, to grant him a daily rest period of at least 11 consecutive hours when this period precedes or follows a weekly rest period or a holiday period.
After being referred by the Court of Miskolc, the CJEU interprets the Directive (2003/88) on the organisation of working time. It notes that daily and weekly rest periods constitute two autonomous rights with distinct objectives. Daily rest allows the worker to be away from the workplace for a specified number of hours, which must not only be consecutive but also directly follow a work period. Weekly rest allows the worker to rest during each seven-day period.
Therefore, in the Court’s view, it is necessary to guarantee workers the effective enjoyment of each of these rights. The daily rest period is, therefore, not part of the weekly rest period. Instead, it is additional to it, even if it directly precedes it.
This interpretation remains valid even where the applicable collective agreement provides for a much higher minimum weekly rest period (at least 42 hours) than that required by the Directive (24 hours).
Read the Court’s judgment: https://aeur.eu/f/5m2 (Original version in French by Mathieu Bion)