Quick legal advice
We were contacted by a client who asked, “I work as a warehouse worker and my employer has been scheduling shifts from 9:00 pm to 5:30 am for several months. However, they claim that special rules for night work do not apply to me because they say it is not a purely night shift. At the same time, he has never offered me any medical examination and there are only a minimum of people in the workplace at night. Can this be the case?”
It doesn’t matter what the employer calls the shift, but how it actually works. If an employee regularly works at least 3 hours at night within 24 consecutive hours, on average at least once a week, he or she is a night worker. For such an employee, the employer has specific obligations, in particular with regard to the length of the shift, occupational health examinations and the provision of first aid, as well as the possibility to call for medical assistance quickly.
In the scheme you have described, it is very likely that it would not just be occasional night work, but an employee working at night. Indeed, the shift from 9pm to 5.30am involves more than 3 hours at night between 10pm and 6am, and if this is repeated on a regular basis, you are subject to special statutory protection. This means that your employer cannot just formally claim that it is not night work and at the same time must give you night work premium pay for the hours you work at night.
At the same time, it should ensure that you are examined by an occupational health provider in accordance with the rules for night work and that first aid facilities are reasonably available at the workplace, as well as the possibility of calling for medical help quickly. If the employer fails to do this over a long period of time, it is appropriate to first seek redress in writing. If an internal solution does not help, a complaint to the labour inspectorate is also an option.
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