European Parliamentary breakfast on the protection of a work-free Sunday in Europe

The event of the European Sunday Alliance – a broad European coalition of trade unions, employers’ associations, social NGOs, and church organisations campaigning for synchronised free time in Europe – was hosted by MEPs Miriam Lexmann and Tomáš Zdechovský (EPP) and came ahead of the European elections in June. On the occasion of the European Day for a Work-Free Sunday on 3 March, CESI, together with members of the European Sunday Alliance, had already launched an election manifesto that calls on European decision-makers to work at national and Brussels level to ensure that Sunday protection remain as broad as possible.

CESI Secretary General Klaus Heeger said: “Digitalisation processes and ever more flexibility in employment relationships require more work by more people on weekends, including from home and on Sundays. We take a critical look at this from the perspective of the workforce.”

He added: “Parts of public services must of course also be available to citizens on weekends and public holidays – including the police, fire brigade and hospitals. However, in the public sector and especially in the private sector, increasing pressure on employees to work weekends and provide non-essential services must be avoided and fought. We stand up for a fundamental right to disconnect and the general protection of Sunday as a day of rest for workers to recharge batteries with family or in social communities.”

Indeed, until the mid-1990s, a provision in the EU Working Time Directive stipulated that Member States must, in principle, protect Sunday as a non-working day. This requirement was anulled by the European Court of Justice at that time because no evidence-based proof was available to show that a Sunday is a more valuable day off for workers’ health than any other day off in the week, as the Working Time Directive has since prescribed.

CESI Secretary General Klaus Heeger commented: “In fact, almost 30 years after the ECJ ruling, there is still surprisingly little data collection and studies showing that employees can ‘switch off’ better on Sunday than on any other day off. For us, however, this assumption remains highly plausible. In the circle of family, in clubs and social communities, employees can recharge their batteries better for the new week than alone at home on any given day, when all other acquaintances and family members are working or at school. This is what our members tell us again and again. We hope that politicians at national and European level will take this into account. And of course, we as trade unions must insist in the social dialogue with employers not to weaken Sunday protection unnecesarily.”