Pfeiffer v Deutsches Kreuz, Kreisverband Waldshut eV (2005) C-397/01-403/01 is a European labour law

European labour law

European labour law is the developing field of laws relating to rights of employment and partnership at work within the European Union and countries adhering to the European Convention on Human Rights.-Treaties:...

 and UK labour law case concerning the Working Time Directive

Working Time Directive

The Working Time Directive is a European Union Directive, which creates the right for EU workers to a minimum number of holidays each year, paid breaks, and rest of at least 11 hours in any 24 hours; restricts excessive night work; and makes a default right to work no more than 48 hours per week....

, which is relevant for the Working Time Regulations 1998

Working Time Regulations 1998

The Working Time Regulations 1998 are a United Kingdom statutory instrument, which regulate the time that people in the UK may work. It is intended to implement the EU Working Time Directive 2003/88/EC. Firstly, it sets a default rule which, although one may controversially opt out of it, that...

.

Facts

Workers of the German Red Cross, including Mr Pfeiffer, who served as emergency workers, doing ambulance runs claimed that a collective agreement that set their hours at 49 hours per week violated the Working Time Directive. The Red Cross contended that as emergency workers they were like civil servants and thus fell outside the Directive's scope.

Judgment

ECJ held that workers could not be asked to do 49 hours a week, if that was agreed by a collective agreement. They had to opt out individually. As a starting matter it held that the exception for civil servants was not applicable, holding ‘the civil protection service in the strict sense thus defined, at which the provision is aimed, can be clearly distinguished from the activities of emergency workers tending the injured and sick which are at issue in the main proceedings.’ And in turn, it held that the ‘worker’s consent must be given not only individually but also expressly and freely.’ So people had to opt out individually, not by collective agreement.

See also

• UK labour law
• Working Time Directive
  Working Time Directive
  The Working Time Directive is a European Union Directive, which creates the right for EU workers to a minimum number of holidays each year, paid breaks, and rest of at least 11 hours in any 24 hours; restricts excessive night work; and makes a default right to work no more than 48 hours per week....
  
  

• Allonby v Accrington and Rossendale College (2004) C-256/01, [67]-[71], also on the dependent position of workers