© Lisa Weisgerber (Archivbild)
On Wednesday, Agriculture Minister Martine Hansen and Labour Minister Georges Mischo unveiled a bill aimed at simplifying and clarifying occasional work and specific tasks in viticulture and fruit production.
Milking cows on Sundays: legal. Harvesting grapes on Sundays: legal. Picking strawberries or mirabelle plums is now also permitted, Agriculture Minister Martine Hansen confirmed on Wednesday:
“If I want strawberries in the supermarket on Monday, they must be able to be picked on Sunday. And if they are ripe on Sunday, they must be picked”, she said. A legal “loophole” is being addressed by explicitly including the term “horticulture” in the law, though landscaping and gardening remain outside its scope.
It is still unclear whether Sunday work will be allowed in vineyards. Serge Fischer, Director of the Institute Viti-Vinicole, noted that workers are currently “in between two statuses”, as they are not considered part of primary production but perform tasks more akin to café or restaurant work. Under the new legislation, they will effectively be assimilated into the hospitality sector.
Simpler medical checks and payrolls
The use of seasonal or occasional workers will also be simplified, according to Labour Minister Georges Mischo. Citing Poland as an example, in the future medical checks could be carried out abroad and pruning grapes will no longer be considered a hazardous task.
In addition to this, the Labour Minster explained that payroll accounting will be streamlined. Employers will no longer need to wait until the end of the month to process payments. Instead, wages can be calculated as soon as the work for a month is completed. For example, if a worker starts at the end of September, the employer currently must process payroll for those few days and again for the full month.
The bill also introduces an "occasional contract" (Contrat à caractère occasionnel in French) to clearly delineate the status of occasional workers.
