RIGHT TO PAID ANNUAL LEAVE : ACCUMULATION OF ENTITLEMENTS: COURT ALLOWS 15-MONTH TEMPORAL LIMIT.

The Working Time Directive does not preclude the introduction in national law of a temporal limit on the accumulation of unused entitlements to paid annual leave. So ruled the EU Court of Justice, on 22 November, on the litigation that opposed the German company KHS AG and Winfried Schulte (Case C-214/10) regarding the latter's request to receive financial indemnity for annual leave which he did not use following a heart attack.

The Uniform General Collective Agreement for the Metal and Electrical Industry in North Rhine-Westphalia - which was relevant for Schulte - sets entitlements to paid annual leave at 30 days and lays out the expiration of entitlements to paid annual leave unused because of sickness after a carry-over period of fifteen months following the reference period (leave year). Following a heart attack, Schulte received a disability pension, from 2002 to 2008, and did not receive his paid annual leave during the years 2006, 2007 and 2008. He complained about this at the Higher Labour Court of Hamm, Germany, which in turn referred the case to the ECJ.

While the judges recognise that entitlement to paid annual leave is one of the principles of social law in the EU (ruling BECTU, 2001), they recall that the law of the Union does not preclude national law setting the loss of entitlement to paid annual leave at the end of a reference period of a carry-over period "on condition that the workers has in fact had the right to exercise their right to annual leave" (ruling Schultz-Hoff, 2009).

In the...