Z.J.R. Lock v British Gas Trading Limited.
Date: 2014-05-22
14. According to the Court’s settled case-law, the entitlement of every worker to paid annual leave must be regarded as a particularly important principle of European Union social law from which there can be no derogations and whose implementation by the competent national authorities must be confined within the limits expressly laid down by Directive 93/104 itself, a directive now codified by Directive 2003/88 (see Case C‑214/10 KHS  EU:C:2011:761, paragraph 23 and the case-law cited). That right is, moreover, expressly guaranteed by Article 31(2) of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union, which Article 6(1) TEU recognises as having the same legal value as the Treaties.
16. Although the wording of Article 7 of Directive 2003/88 does not give any express indication as regards the remuneration to which a worker is entitled during his annual leave, the Court has already stated that the term ‘paid annual leave’ in Article 7(1) means that, for the duration of ‘annual leave’ within the meaning of that directive, remuneration must be maintained and that, in other words, workers must receive their normal remuneration for that period of rest (see Joined Cases C‑131/04 and C‑257/04 Robinson-Steele and Others  EU:C:2006:177, paragraph 50, and Joined Cases C‑350/06 and C‑520/06 Schultz-Hoff and Others  EU:C:2009:18, paragraph 58).
17. Directive 2003/88 treats entitlement to annual leave and to a payment on that account as being two aspects of a single right. The purpose of providing payment for that leave is to put the worker, during such leave, in a position which is, as regards his salary, comparable to periods of work (see Robinson-Steele and Others  EU:C:2006:177, paragraph 58, and Schultz-Hoff and Others  EU:C:2009:18, paragraph 60).
20. Admittedly, the conditions laid down in Article 7 of Directive 2003/88, as interpreted by the Court, appear to be observed by the national legislation and practice in so far as, during the period of his annual leave, the worker receives a total amount comparable to that earned during periods of work. The amount paid in respect of both his annual leave and the sales achieved by him during the weeks preceding the period of his annual leave enables the worker to take the leave to which he is entitled (see, to that effect, Robinson-Steele and Others  EU:C:2006:177, paragraph 49).
23. Such a reduction in a worker’s remuneration in respect of his paid annual leave, liable to deter him from actually exercising his right to take that leave, is contrary to the objective pursued by Article 7 of Directive 2003/88 (see, to that effect, inter alia, Case C‑155/10 Williams and Others EU:C:2011:588, paragraph 21). In that regard, the fact that that reduction in remuneration occurs, as is the case in the main proceedings, after the period of annual leave, is irrelevant.
26. In this respect, it should be observed at the outset that remuneration paid in respect of annual leave must, in principle, be determined in such a way as to correspond to the normal remuneration received by the worker (see Williams and Others EU:C:2011:588, paragraph 21).
27. Where the remuneration received by the worker is composed of several components, the determination of the normal remuneration to which the worker in question is entitled during his annual leave requires a specific analysis (see Williams and Others  EU:C:2011:588, paragraph 22).
29. In any specific analysis, for the purpose of the case-law cited above, it is established that any inconvenient aspect which is linked intrinsically to the performance of the tasks which the worker is required to carry out under his contract of employment and in respect of which a monetary amount is provided and included in the calculation of the worker’s total remuneration must necessarily be taken into account for the purposes of calculating the amount to which the worker is entitled during his annual leave (see Williams and Others EU:C:2011:588, paragraph 24).
30. In addition, the Court has stated that all components of total remuneration relating to the professional and personal status of the worker must continue to be paid during his paid annual leave. Thus, any allowances relating to seniority, length of service and to professional qualifications must be maintained (see, to that effect, Case C‑471/08 Parviainen  EU:C:2010:391, paragraph 73, and Williams and Others  EU:C:2011:588, paragraph 27).
31. By contrast, according to that same line of case-law, the components of the worker’s total remuneration which are intended exclusively to cover occasional or ancillary costs arising at the time of performance of the tasks which the worker is required to carry out under his contract of employment need not be taken into account in the calculation of the payment to be made during annual leave (see Williams and Others  EU:C:2011:588, paragraph 25).
34. Accordingly, it is for the national court or tribunal to assess, in the light of the principles identified in the Court’s case-law, as referred to above, whether, on the basis of an average over a reference period which is considered to be representative, under national law, the methods of calculating the commission payable to a worker, such as the applicant in the main proceedings, in respect of his annual leave, achieve the objective pursued by Article 7 of Directive 2003/88.