[author: Anthony Oncidi]

Europeans who happen to get sick while on vacation now have the right to take more vacation to make up for the period of illness. The Court of Justice of the European Union ruled last week that workers who get sick while away on their annual guaranteed four-week vacation must be given additional vacation time so that they may fully enjoy their time off, which is intended "to enable the worker to rest and enjoy a period of relaxation and leisure." The challenge to an earlier and less employee-friendly interpretation of the E.U.'s Working Time Directive came from a collective of Spanish trade unions. The ruling applies to all 27 countries within the European Union. However, as The New York Times observed, "the ruling does not apply to the 25 percent of the Spanish labor force that is currently unemployed." The New York Times article can be found here.