Filenews 6 November 2022 - by Adamos Adamou
A practice that has always benefited the Leave Fund, but not the workers, seems to be coming to an end soon, as it will ensure that all employees are entitled to paid leave, even if they have not completed 13 weeks' work.
The changes that are coming concern those employees whose employers pay contributions to the Leave Fund, based on the Annual Paid Leave Law, but also those who are paid their leave directly by their employer. Both, as currently provided for in the current legislation - the Annual Paid Leave Law - will have to complete 13 weeks of continuous work in order to be entitled to any paid leave. "It is understood that when an employee has worked less than thirteen weeks of work within the leave year, he is not entitled to leave under this Law," the legislation states.
As a result, if an employee has worked only 12 weeks and has proportionally acquired the right to five days' leave - each worker is entitled annually to 20 working days of paid leave if he or she works five days - that leave is effectively 'lost'. Since, as we wrote, as long as employees do not complete 13 weeks, as much leave as they have accumulated proportionally, they are not entitled to it. By extension, neither are they entitled to payment of it in case they leave their job, whether voluntarily or not.
As a result, in the case of the Leave Fund, the employer's contributions remain in the fund, strengthening its other activities. In the case of an employer who maintains his own leave plan, in fact the employee, if he has not completed 13 weeks, is not entitled to anything proportionally, without any impact on the employer.
In order to eliminate this injustice, an amending bill was recently discussed in the Central Leave Fund Council, which deletes this provision, according to which, in order for an employeeto be entitled to paid annual leave,he must have worked at least 13 weeks within the leave year. If the deletion of the provision becomes an act, with the adoption of the relevant bill by the Parliament, where it is expected to be submitted soon, each employee will in fact enshrine proportional leave from the first day of work and will be entitled to this leave even if he has not completed 13 weeks.
The astonishing thing, however, as it emerges from the explanatory memorandum of the Attorney General on the bill, is that, with the deletion of this provision, the country will in fact fully adopt a relevant European directive of 1993! Since, as the Advocate General explains, the deletion of this provision 'will avoid conflict with Council Directive 93/104/EC of 23 November 1993 on certain aspects of the organisation of working time and the relevant case law of the Court of Justice of the European Union (Case C-173/99)'.
