Society Politicians want to compensate for public holidays that fall on Sundays
Berlin · Annoying for workers: 1 May falls on a Sunday this year. In other countries, such holidays are compensated for. Politicians from the Left and the Greens see a model for Germany.
Ironically, this year 1 May, Labour Day, once again falls on a Sunday. This is bad news for workers - they have one day off less. Now some politicians are campaigning to make up for such lost days off in future. In many countries - including Belgium, Spain and the UK - public holidays that fall on a weekend are compensated for by having the following working day off. In Germany, surveys show that opinions on this issue seem to have changed in recent years.
In 2022, two fixed public holidays in Germany fall on a Sunday: 1 May and 25 December. 1 January was a Saturday; 3 October and Boxing Day fall on Mondays. New Year's Day 2023 falls on a Sunday again.
Linke: more rest from work needed
The Left Party (die Linke) will soon take parliamentary action "so that in future no more public holidays are cancelled and social cohesion in the country is strengthened", said the First Parliamentary Secretary of the Left Party in the Bundestag, Jan Korte, to the Düsseldorf "Rheinische Post". Until this is regulated by law, he called on "the employers to give employees an additional day off work to make up for the lost public holiday and as a Coronavirus bonus".
Korte said that every lost public holiday meant more stress and less urgently needed rest from the pressures of work and the pandemic. In particular 1 May has a special meaning for workers "as a day of struggle and a public holiday".
The labour market expert of the Greens, Beate Müller-Gemmeke, told the Rheinische Post: "Of course, it is annoying for employees when Labour Day, the public holiday on 1 May, falls on a Sunday." Müller-Gemmeke said that it was now time "to discuss socially that public holidays that fall on a Sunday can be observed on another day, as is already the case in a number of countries".
Poll: Half in favour of catch-up regulation
A Yougov poll in 2021 found that half of adults in Germany would be in favour of observing national public holidays that fall on a weekend the following Monday. About a third of respondents in Germany were against the proposal. Five years earlier, a Yougov survey concluded that just over half of Germans aged 18 and over would not find it sensible to introduce this catch-up rule in Germany.
According to a pro & con of the Institute of the German Economy (IW), IW working time expert Christoph Schröder puts forward international competitiveness as an argument against such a regulation: "Germany has the shortest annual working time in the EU and at the same time, together with Denmark, has the most days off. And Belgium, Luxembourg and the UK do not have more days off than Germany, even with catch-up holidays. Only Spain is far ahead with 14 public holidays, but with only 22 days annual vacation."