Overview
- With All Saints’ Day falling on Saturday, roughly six million Bavarian employees receive no additional weekday off under current rules.
- DGB Bayern proposes that any public holiday landing on a weekend be made up on the next working day and wants the provision written into the Arbeitszeitgesetz.
- The Bavarian employers’ association vbw opposes the idea, saying Germany already has many days off and warning that further reducing work time would hurt competitiveness.
- The union points to practices in the United Kingdom, the United States, Poland and more than 85 other countries as evidence that substitute days are workable.
- No law has changed to date, and urgency is heightened because next year Mariä Himmelfahrt, German Unity Day, All Saints’ Day and the Second Day of Christmas will fall on weekends.