After years of dispute: approval of Sunday work at Amazon was illegal

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In 2015, an Amazon subsidiary requested Sunday work for 800 employees

Photo: INA FASSBENDER / AFP

In the dispute over Sunday work in Advent, the Federal Administrative Court in Leipzig has confirmed a previous judgment by the Higher Administrative Court (OVG) in Münster.

This had previously declared a permit to work on Sundays to be illegal.

Sunday work to avert "disproportionate damage" may only be permitted in a temporary special situation for which the employer is not responsible.

The longstanding legal dispute between the online mail order company Amazon and the Ver.di union has thus been decided.

In 2015, Amazon had applied for Sunday work in Advent for several of its mail order warehouses - and justified this with the increased orders in the Christmas business.

The state of North Rhine-Westphalia had approved the work on two Sundays in Rheinberg.

However, the Düsseldorf administrative court found that this was unlawful in response to the action brought by Ver.di.

The Amazon subsidiary was also unsuccessful in the appeal proceedings before the Münster Higher Regional Court.

Both the company and the state of North Rhine-Westphalia appealed to the Federal Administrative Court.

This now rejected both revisions.

If special circumstances required it to prevent disproportionate damage, the authorities could allow Sunday work for up to five days.

But this is not the case here, the court announced.

Special circumstances are temporary special situations that have an external cause.

In that case, however, the seasonal increase in incoming orders was not the cause of delivery bottlenecks.

Rather, they were significantly strengthened by the fact that Amazon introduced free delivery on the day of the order shortly before the Christmas business.

Az. 8 C 3.20

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kim / dpa / AFP