Työaikalain soveltamisalasta poikkeaminen Suomen evankelis-luterilaisen kirkon hengellisessä työssä
Avainsanat:
kirkko-oikeus, hengellinen työ, työaika, työaikalain soveltamisala, työoikeusAbstrakti
Application of the Working Time Act in the spiritual work of the Evangelical-Lutheran Church of Finland
The article examines the application of the Working Time Act (872/2019; työaikalaki) in the spiritual work of the Evangelical-Lutheran Church of Finland (ELCF). The question is scrutinised in the light of recent court decisions that consider the EU Working Time Directive (2003/88/EC) and the national working time legislation in Finland. According to the case-law of the Court of Justice of the EU, Member States may derogate from Articles 3–6, 8, and 16 of the Directive only if the workers can decide their working times entirely autonomously. In addition, it is required that the employer shows why the monitoring of working time is not possible. This strict interpretation of the Directive has been adopted in Finnish courts only quite recently, and it has not been expressed with equivalent precision in the preparatory works for the Working Time Act. As regards ELCF, the employer representatives and employee representatives have disagreed as to whether the Working Time Act should be applied in spiritual work, even though the Labour Council, an independent special authority under the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Employment, has issued an opinion on the application of the Working Time Act to the spiritual officials of ELCF. Since the collective bargaining agreement of ELCF predefines the annual number of working days, and the employer also has the right to determine the timing of days off and of work assignments, the spiritual officials of ELCF do fall within the scope of application of the Working Time Act. Also, recent working time experiments indicate that monitoring of working time is possible in spiritual work, which leads to the conclusion that the monitoring of working time arrangements is to be considered the employer’s duty also in ECLF.
