Article 24 – Leisure time and vacation

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What does this right mean?

Article 24 is included in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) to ensure that human labour would not be used like a product. Employees are therefore required to have good working conditions, and have to be able to live a good life because of and besides their jobs. This is related to the rights in Article 23. The right to rest, leisure time and paid vacations in Article 24 links up with that.

The workers, their wives and children in free nature at least one week per year; one week per year of wonderful exuberant joy; that is the meaning of our vacation demand.

What is the history of this right?

The right to restriction of work duration and leave is an important right for employees. In order to protect workers from working too much, with no rest, it was important to recognise this right in the law. In the drafting of the UDHR, there was much discussion on the question how detailed this article had to be written down. Should also be included how leisure time was to be guaranteed? Such as by restriction of working hours and paid vacations? A number of states believed this was not needed, because this would then make the article too detailed.

On the other hand, a number of the drafters believed the right to restriction of work time should actually be included in the article. This was because rest and leisure time would be impossible if the working hours are not limited, and people have to work the entire day. Without the limitation of working hours, Article 24 would be pointless. Some also believed the right to paid vacations should be stated in Article 24. If the leave were to be unpaid, not everyone would be able to take leisure time.

Finally, the choice was made to include the right to limited work time and paid vacations in the article.

Where and how is this right documented?

The right of Article 24 of the UDHR is included in a number of treaties of the United Nations (UN). First of all in Article 7 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. The Convention on the Rights of the Child specifically includes their right to rest and leisure time in Article 31. Article 32 off this treaty states that States have to document rules on the working hours and working conditions for working children.

At a European level too, the right to matters such as paid vacation is documented. Article 31 Subsection 2 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union states that employees have the right to limitation of the duration of work, rest times and paid vacations. Article 2 of the European Social Charter lists the right to ‘just conditions of work’, which also includes rights such as paid vacations and holidays. Article 7 determines that these and other working conditions also apply to underage employees. In a specific European guideline, the Working Time Directive, Article 7 further describes the right to an annual vacation.

In the Netherlands, the right to paid leave was legally adopted in 1966, in which employers were required to guarantee their employees two weeks of paid leave. The eight-hour workday had already been implemented before, in 1919. The right to rest and leisure time is not specifically listed in the Constitution of the Netherlands. But Article 19 of the Constitution does state that the position of workers has to be arranged. Based on this, various Dutch laws have been drafted to arrange the working conditions of employees.

How topical is this human right?

In our society, work and good terms of employment are important. Still, various ways show that having the right to rest and leisure time is not as easy as it sounds. For instance, there are still very many people who are overworked. In Japan, there is even a word for it: karōshi (overwork death). This is often caused by heart conditions and strokes caused by stress. There are also still many people who have to work long days under bad terms of employment with little legal protection. These people are then often still poor. For instance, this applies to migrant workers who have to work under bad working conditions and then still live in poverty.

Another way in which this right is currently relevant in the Netherlands is the discussion on whether or not certain employed people are independent contractors or employees entitled to an employment contract. Some employed people are deployed as employees but are officially hired as independent contractors. This results in them not having the protection provided by an employment contract. In various court rulings, it has been determined that these people do have the right to an employment contract. The employees then receive more protection in various ways, including but not limited to rest, days off, continued payment and pension accrual.

Another example are the free holidays which employees have without loss of salary. At the time of writing (2023), there is no law stating which holidays are mandatory days off. Many Collective Labour Agreements do determine that certain holidays are days off which are not deducted from the vacation days. This means that these official holidays are often paid days off. But the official holidays in the Netherlands are still primarily the Christian holidays, such as Christmas or Pentecost. More and more Collective Labour Agreements do also include possibilities for days off on holidays of other religious beliefs. But differences still continue to exist then. Some employees can easily take the day off on the holiday of their religion because everyone already does so, as it is an official Dutch holiday. To others, this is sometimes less obvious.