Holiday regulation: do the people of Hessen work too much?

D.The number of public holidays in Germany is a matter of the country. Nine public holidays apply throughout the Federal Republic of Germany; there are also only regionally permitted public holidays – such as the day of penance and prayer, which is only free in Saxony. In Baden-Württemberg, Bavaria and Saarland, people were able to look forward to twelve days off beyond the weekends this year, while in Saxony, Rhineland-Palatinate and Thuringia there were only eleven. Like seven other states, Hesse only had ten public holidays to offer. Unsurprisingly, perhaps, that there is some catching up to do in the region between Kellerwald and Odenwald. The left-wing parliamentary group in the Hessian state parliament, for example, campaigns for a public holiday on December 1st in honor of the state constitution, but does not meet with much approval from the other parliamentary groups.

On December 1, 1946, after a referendum, the Hessian constitution came into force, and because the Left Party is able to recognize an “anti-capitalist basic approach” in it, for example the passage on the possible socialization of mining, iron and steel production and the energy industry in Article 41, it is attached to the document in its own unique way. The constitution is “a commitment to peace, anti-fascism, equality and freedom for people, social rights and the restriction of economic power,” praised the parliamentary group leader of the Left, Jan Schalauske, recently in a parliamentary speech. The constitution should therefore not only be celebrated this year – the 75th anniversary of its birth – but again and again. “Therefore we want to make December 1st a public holiday.”

From because of, warned the FDP MP Jörg-Uwe Hahn, who sees the leftist advance as a disguised attack on the economic power of Hesse. In order to celebrate Constitutional Day properly, it does not necessarily have to be off work, argued the Liberal. Interior Minister Peter Beuth (CDU), in turn, simply stated that the predominant arguments against a non-working “Constitutional Day”. End of debate.

Celebrate yes, but please without free time

Beyond the Hessian state borders, the rulers are more willing to reform. In Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, for example, International Women’s Day should be a public holiday on March 8, 2023. This is what the Social Democrats and the Left, ruling together in Schwerin, have agreed on. Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania has so far only had ten public holidays and thus fewer than other countries – an argument that women’s rights activists in Hesse could also use.

Incidentally, International Women’s Day has been a public holiday in Berlin since 2019. Most men are also happy about this, but the additional day off has not yet resulted in a significant boost to social equality for the female part of the population. Unsurprisingly, the state government’s offer is not understood as an encouragement to political activities for the benefit of women, but as an invitation to leisure activities.

International Women’s Day misses its target

Reformation Day on October 31st has been a public holiday in Lower Saxony, Hamburg, Schleswig-Holstein and Bremen since 2018. In Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania and the other four eastern German states of Brandenburg, Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt and Thuringia, it was introduced as a public holiday in 1990 when reunification took place. In all other federal states it is not considered an event worth celebrating with freedom of work, not even in the predominantly Protestant Hesse.