Discrimination against part-time employees due to too frequent weekend work, LAG Berlin-Brandenburg 20.08.2015 - 26 Sa 2340/14

The part-time plaintiff was scheduled to work the same number of hours on weekends as full-time employees. Measured against her lower total working hours, the plaintiff was therefore scheduled more frequently for weekends than full-time employees. In the proceedings, the plaintiff argued that the workload was higher. Furthermore, the frequent weekend work made it more difficult to organize leisure time at weekends.

In contrast to the Berlin Labor Court, the Berlin-Brandenburg Higher Labor Court saw this as discrimination against the plaintiff pursuant to Section 4 (1) sentence 1 TzBfG. The distribution of weekend work would have to take place on a pro rata basis depending on the amount of working hours. In the case of a 50% position, this means that a part-time employee may only be scheduled to work half the number of days on weekends that a full-time employee must work on weekends compared to a full-time employee. Otherwise, part-time employees would have to work the same number of weekends despite reduced working hours. The disadvantages that weekend work entails cannot be compensated for by the higher pay for weekend work, as this is equally advantageous for full-time employees. To prevent part-time employees from being disadvantaged, the employer must reduce the number of hours worked by part-time employees at weekends and distribute them among the full-time employees.