Reporting period: 1 January - 31 March 2021: Report on European Labour and Social Security Law
The fifth edition of the HSI Report covers the reporting period from January to March 2021.
The CJEU recently issued a new decision in the area of anti-discrimination law. Specifically, the judges had to deal with the question of whether the Equal Treatment Framework Directive 2000/78/EC also protects against unequal treatment within a group of employees with the same ground of discrimination (in this case a disability). The ruling was based on the problem of a cut-off date regulation for a pay supplement. In addition, the CJEU has passed several other decisions of practical relevance. In two recent judgements, it once again addressed the distinction between working time and rest time in the case of on-call duty (C-344/19 - Radiotelevizija Slovenija and C-580/19 - Stadt Offenbach am Main). The judgement in Airhelp (C-28/20) is also important. Here, the Grand Chamber of the CJEU found that a strike organised by a trade union in air transport does not constitute an 'extraordinary circumstance' within the meaning of the Passenger Rights Regulation.
The opinion of the advocate general in the appeal proceedings in EPSU v. Commission is also worth mentioning. The question is whether there is an obligation of the Commission to submit a framework agreement to the Council for a decision, so that its contents are transferred into an EU legislative act, if that framework agreement has come into being within the framework of the social dialogue pursuant to Article 155 (2) TFEU. Another opinion deals with the prohibition of wearing visible religious signs such as a headscarf at the workplace in a day-care center and a drugstore chain (Joined Cases C-804/18 and C-341/19 - WABE and MH Müller Handel).
From the case law of the ECtHR, a decision on whistleblowing is to be highlighted (No. 23922/19 - Gawlik v. Liechtenstein). A deputy chief physician was dismissed after he approached the public prosecutor's office with the suspicion that his superior had performed unauthorised euthanasia. In Jurcic v. Croatia (No. 54711/15), the ECtHR clearly rejected discrimination based on gender stereotypes by state authorities. At issue was the withdrawal of health insurance coverage from a pregnant woman after in-vitro fertilisation on the grounds that she was medically unfit for employment. Gender inequality is also the subject of a recent pending complaint concerning different retirement ages for women and men (No. 31428/20 - Marin v. Romania). Another complaint concerns a dismissal that may be related to the trade union activities of the person concerned (No. 976/20 - Hoppen and Amber Grid v. Lithuania). In the judegment in Eminagaoglu v. Turkey (No. 76521/12), the ECtHR clarified that members of the judiciary also have the right to express public criticism of the judicial system.