Customary Labor Law: Company Practice

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Practice makes perfect, it is said in the vernacular. Exercise can also create a common law claim. This also applies to labor law. As an employee you can e.g. B. have a payment claim against your employee.

The term "customary law" is understood to mean the law that does not come about in a legislative process or similar formally. It is unwritten law that comes from habit. That is, by someone behaving in a certain way. This can e.g. B. Be your employer. In this way an operational exercise can arise.

Operational exercise as common law

A company exercise occurs when the employer repeatedly behaves in the same way. For example, he could pay you a Christmas bonus for several years in a row.

  • If there is no entitlement to this payment on the basis of the employment contract or a collective agreement, a company exercise may arise. Can - but doesn't have to! It is crucial that your employer behaves in exactly the same way and that this creates an act of trust.
  • If he pays you the Christmas bonus for several years in a row in different amounts and based on a different calculation, there is no operational exercise. In this case the habit typical of common law is missing.
  • in the Employment Law A company exercise only emerges after a certain repetition rate. According to case law, the employer must have granted you the special payment for three years in a row without being legally obliged to do so. Only after the same payment has been repeated three times is the necessary fact of trust created.
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A reservation is possible in labor law

  • Labor law offers an easy way of avoiding a company exercise: your employer declares before the payment is granted that this is only made with reservations and that there is no future claim associated with it is.
  • With such a declaration, you cannot be confident that you will receive the same payment in the next year. This rules out the occurrence of an operational exercise.

Special features apply to public employers

  • The public service is characterized by the fact that the benefits in the employment relationship are limited by budget law. With a public employer, you can do your salary usually do not negotiate, but are grouped.

  • Budget law does not allow public employers to spend more money than they have to due to legal obligations. Get special payments or allowances, the tariff or employment contract do not provide, therefore, no operational exercise has yet emerged. Rather, your employer was more likely to be wrong about the collective agreement providing for such a payment.

Conclusion: There is also customary law in an employment relationship. The operational exercise is typical for this.

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