An employment contract contained this sentence: Mit der vorstehenden Vergütung sind erforderliche Überstunden des Arbeitnehmers mit abgegolten. The above pay also covers any overtime the employee needs to work. In 2010 the Federal Labor Court declared the clause void. An employee must know when signing the contract how much extra work is owed without pay. A valid clause must therefore limit how much overtime the salary covers.
A Time Debt
A working-time account can also fall below zero. In 2011 the Federal Labor Court ruled on when minus hours may be booked. The employer must have paid for the hours in advance, as part of a steady salary, and the employee must be obliged to work them later. In its reasoning the court uses the word Zeitschuld, a time debt. The ruling also sets a limit. If the employer simply fails to schedule the hours the employee owes, the missing hours do not become the employee’s debt.
The Time Account
Many German employers keep an Arbeitszeitkonto, a working-time account. Extra hours are credited to it as plus hours, and they are later taken back as time off. According to the Institute for Employment Research, IAB, about 37 percent of all employees had such a short-term account in 2023. The share of workplaces with these accounts had doubled to 29 percent. At the end of 2023, the average account holder had 30.4 plus hours. In total, about 473 million hours were held on these accounts. Some employers also offer long-term accounts. In these, pay is saved as a Wertguthaben, a value credit, for a later period of paid leave, such as care leave or early retirement.
The Time Study
On 30 September 1924, the Reichsausschuß für Arbeitszeitermittlung, the Reich Committee for Determining Working Time, was founded. It is known by its initials, REFA. Its early task was to measure working time for cost calculations and for piece-rate work. REFA trained Zeitnehmer, time takers. By 1929 REFA had trained 1,650 time takers, and by 1943 about 12,000. The association still exists and still trains people in work-time study.
Time Instead of Money
In February 2018, IG Metall and the metal employers of Baden-Württemberg agreed that employees may reduce their working week to 28 hours for up to two years. Afterward they have a full right to return to full time. Shift workers, carers and parents of young children may also choose eight days off instead of a new annual payment. In November 2018, a union survey of works councils in 1,400 companies found that about 190,000 employees planned to take the days off.
In March 2024, after months of strikes, the train drivers’ union GDL and Deutsche Bahn agreed to cut the working week for shift workers from 38 to 35 hours by 2029, with no loss of pay. Workers who prefer money can choose to work longer, up to 40 hours a week, for more pay.
Trust-Based Working Time
About one in five employees in Germany works under Vertrauensarbeitszeit, working time based on trust. What counts is that agreed tasks are done, not that the employee is present. The employee organizes his own hours and records them himself. The employer remains responsible for compliance with the legal limits on working time. On 14 May 2019, the European Court of Justice ruled that employers must record daily working time. The employers’ association Gesamtmetall called trust-based working time praktisch tot, practically dead. On 13 September 2022, the Federal Labor Court ruled that this duty applies to German employers unmittelbar und sofort, directly and immediately.
The Working Hours Act
Das Arbeitszeitgesetz. German law caps the working day at eight hours, extendable to ten only if the average returns to eight within six months. The ten-hour limit is absolute. Eleven uninterrupted hours of rest are required between working days. Breaks are mandatory: thirty minutes after six hours of work, forty-five after nine.
Since a Federal Labour Court ruling in 2022, all working time must be recorded.