Joined Cases C-253/96, C-254/96, C-255/96, C-256/96, C-257/96 and C-258/96

Helmut Kampelmann and Others

v

Landschartsverband Westfalen-Lippe and Others

References for a preliminary ruling from the Landesarbeitsgericht Hamm

‛Obligation to inform employees — Directive 91/533/EEC — Article 2(2)(c)’

Opinion of Advocate General Tesauro delivered on 9 October 1997   I-6910

Judgment of the Court (Fifth Chamber), 4 December 1997   I-6923

Summary of the Judgment

1. Social policy — Approximation of Uws — Employer's obligation to inform employees of the conditions applicable to the contract or employment relationship — Directive 91/533 — Document containing information on the essential aspects of the contract or employment relationship — Presumption as to correctness — Evidence to the contrary — Permissible

   (Council Directive 91/533, Art. 2(1) and (2)(c))

2. Social policy — Approximation of laws — Employer's obligation to inform employees of the conditions applicable to the contract or employment relationship — Directive 91/533 — Article 2(2)(c) — Direct effect — Choice available to Member States between two categories ofinformation to be notified to the employee — No relevance for direct effect of the provision in issue

   (Coundl Directive 91/533, Art. 2(2)(c))

3. Social policy — Approximation of laws — Employer's obligation to inform employees of the conditions applicable to the contract or employment relationship — Directive 91/533 — Notification of ‘a brief specification or description of the work’ — Limited to notification of the mere designation of the employee's activity — Not permissible

   (Council Directive 91/533, Art. 2(2)(c)(ii))

4. Social policy — Approximation of laws — Employer's obligation to inform employees of the conditions applicable to the contract or employment relationship — Directive 91/533 — Contract or employment rektionship in existence upon entry into force of national implementing provisions — Exemption of the employer from the obligation to notify the employee of the essential aspects of the contract or employment relationship where they have already been notified — Permissible

   (Council Directive 91/533, Art. 9(2))

1.  The notification referred to in Article 2(1) of Directive 91/533 on an employer's obligation to inform employees of the conditions applicable to the contract or employment relationship, in so far as it informs an employee of the essential aspects of the contract or employment relationship and, in particular, of the points listed in Article 2(2)(c), enjoys the same presumption as to its correctness as would attach, in domestic law, to any similar document drawn up by the employer and communicated to the employee. The employer must none the less be allowed to bring any evidence to the contrary, by showing that the information in the notification is either inherently incorrect or has been shown to be so in fact.

2.  Individuals may rely on Article 2(2)(c) of Directive 91/533 directly before the national courts as against the State and any organizations or bodies which are subject to the authority or control of the State or have special powers beyond those which result from the normal rules applicable to relations between individuals, either where the State has failed to transpose the Directive into national law within the prescribed period or where it has not done so correctly.

   Article 2(2)(c) clearly and unequivocally lists a number of the essential aspects of the contract of which an employer is obliged to notify an employee, namely ‘the title, grade, nature or category of the work for which the employee is employed’ or ‘a brief specification or description of the work’. Furthermore, the fact that that provision allows the Member State to choose between two categories of information to be notified to the employee does not render it impossible to determine with sufficient precision, on the basis of the provisions of the Directive alone, the content of the rights thus conferred on individuals, the scope of which is not in the discretion of the Member State whichever choice it makes.

3.  It is not open to a Member State to transpose Article 2(2)(c)(ii) of the Directive, which requires an employer to give employees a brief specification or description of their work, in such a way as to allow the employer, in every case, to confine the information to be notified to the employee to a mere job designation.

4.  Article 9(2) of Directive 91/533, properly construed, does not preclude the Member States from exempting an employer from the obligation to give an employee written notification of the essential aspects of the contract or employment relationship, even at the employee's request, when those aspects are already set out in a document or contract of employment drawn up before the measures transposing the Directive entered into force.