The United Kingdom Working Time Regulations provide, in particular, that the right to paid annual leave does not arise until a worker has completed a period of 13 weeks' uninterrupted employment with the same employer.

Most of the workers represented by BECTU are engaged on short-term contracts _ frequently for less than 13 weeks with the same employer. Consequently such workers have no right to paid annual leave under United Kingdom law.

BECTU brought proceedings before the High Court of Justice to challenge those regulations.

The High Court of Justice sought a preliminary ruling from the Court of Justice of the European Communities as to whether the regulations were compatible with the Community Directive concerning certain aspects of the organisation of working time: must a worker complete a minimum period of uninterrupted employment with the same employer in order to begin to accrue rights to paid annual leave?

The Court observed, first, that the purpose of the directive is to lay down minimum requirements intended to improve the living and working conditions of workers through approximation of national provisions concerning, in particular, the duration of working time. That harmonisation is intended to guarantee better protection of the health and safety of workers by ensuring that they are entitled to minimum rest periods and adequate breaks.

The Court also observed that the Community Charter of the Fundamental Social Rights of Workers (9 December 1989), which was taken into account in the directive, provides that every worker in the European Community must enjoy satisfactory health and safety conditions in his working environment and that he is therefore entitled to paid annual leave.

The Community directive thus provides that every worker is to be entitled to paid annual leave of at least four weeks (three weeks during a transitional period of a maximum of three years as from the date of transposition of the directive in 1996).

From this, the Court concluded that the right to paid annual leave is a particularly important principle of Community social law from which there can be no derogations by the Member States.

That entitlement to paid annual leave constitutes a social right directly conferred by the directive on every worker in order to ensure protection of his health and safety. The right applies to all sectors of activity and no distinction is to be drawn between workers employed under a contract of indefinite duration and those employed under a fixed-term contract.

Accordingly, the Court considers that the United Kingdom regulations are contrary to Community law. They have the effect of depriving certain workers of any right to paid annual leave

Although Member States enjoy a degree of latitude in defining in their domestic legislation the practical arrangements for giving effect to the right to paid annual leave, they may not thereby deprive certain workers of the benefit of that right.

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