EMPLOYEES in private companies are being reminded that they are entitled to a whole new range of rights relating to leave under EU law.
Under new labour laws ushered in on January 1, 2003 as part of EU harmonisation, employees from the public and private sector have secured a whole range of rights relating to holiday, parental and emergency leave.
Based on a European directive translated into national law at the beginning of the year, all employees are entitled to a minimum of four weeks’ holiday a year. For civil service employees working five-day weeks, this raises their leave from 19 to 20 days a year. For all employees working six-day weeks, the minimum leave goes up to 24 days.
The EU law has also introduced new rights to the Cyprus labour force in the form of parental and emergency leave. According to the law, apart from paid maternity leave available to a worker after birth, a mother or father now has the opportunity to take 13 weeks of unpaid ‘parental’ leave.
An official from the Public Administration and Personnel Service told the Cyprus Mail that employees in the private and public sector were entitled to take a total of 13 weeks unpaid leave over a period of five years from the birth of the child, but the parent is limited to using a maximum of four weeks parental leave a year.
“The idea is for the parent, male or female, to be able to take unpaid leave while the child is growing, for instance during the summer months, in order to raise the child and care for it,” said the official. “The important point is this won’t affect employees’ other rights like pensions or anything else,” he added.
Employees within the civil service are currently entitled to 10 weeks’ paid and six weeks’ unpaid maternity leave.
The new law also provides for seven days unpaid ‘emergency’ leave a year. This covers unforeseen circumstances in an employee’s family life such as the illness or injury of a family member, which requires the employee to leave work temporarily.
These rights are separate to any sick leave agreed between employees and their employers. Civil servants are allowed up to 42 days sick leave per year.
According to the relevant EU directive passed on June 22, 2000, the EU sets out limits on working hours:
“The limits on hours of work or rest shall be either:
(a) maximum hours of work which shall not exceed:
(i) 14 hours in any 24-hour period, and
(ii) 72 hours in any seven-day period;
or
(b) minimum hours of rest which shall not be less than:
(i) 10 hours in any 24-hour period, and
(ii) 77 hours in any seven-day period.”
The directive stipulates that hours of rest may be divided into no more than two periods, one of which shall be at least six hours in length. However, exceptions to the standards laid down are permitted by member states for technical reasons or reasons concerning the organisation of work, provided there is consultation, where possible, of employers and workers and efforts are made to encourage all relevant forms of social dialogue, or there are collective agreements.
