Judgment of the Court of Justice in Case C-341/02 Commission of the European Communities v. Federal Republic of Germany

The European Court of Justice ruled on 14 April 2005 that a member state is not obliged, when checking to ensure that the minimum wage is being paid to workers posted from another member state, to take all allowances and supplements into account.

The court decided that quality bonuses and bonuses for dirty, heavy or dangerous work are not elements which must mandatorily be taken into account for purposes of calculating the minimum wage.

The judgement followed an action brought by the European Commission against Germany in 2002 for failure to fulfil obligations in respect of certain features of the German rules governing the posting of workers. More specifically, that action concerns the compatibility, with Directive 96/71, of the method applied by that member states for the purpose of comparing the minimum wage fixed by national German provisions with the remuneration actually paid by an employer established in another member state.

Europa: Eur-lex: Case-law: CURIA: Case C-341/02 http://curia.europa.eu/jurisp/cgi-bin/form.pl?lang=en&Submit=Submit&alldocs=alldocs&docj=docj&docop=docop&docor=docor&docjo=docjo&numaff=C-341%2F02&datefs=&datefe=&nomusuel=&domaine=&mots=&resmax=100

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