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Protecting workers in hotels, restaurants and catering
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(35 hours). The overtime hours are deducted from this equivalent working time. This equivalent working time has to be introduced by decree. http://epmtth.org/employeur/journal7.htm
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In addition, different collective working agreements (conventions collectives de travail) exist for the Horeca sector, covering hotels and restaurants, hotels, cafés, restaurants, tourism, hotels with three, four, five stars, luxury hotels, canteens, etc. They lay down the specific social provisions for the sector relating, for example, to working time, night work, leave and holidays, regulations concerning working conditions and food and accommodation for staff (healthy food, suitable and healthy accommodation if relevant), working uniforms and equipment, occupational accidents and diseases, etc. Depending on the region there can be extensions and alterations. Belgium Several collective work agreements (CWA) among the social partners in the hotels and restaurants sector on working time and reduction of working time have been concluded; a coordinated text has been valid since 1 July 1999. The Netherlands A collective work agreement for the hotels and restaurants sector (from 1 July 2005 to 31 March 2008) lays down the specific rules for this sector. Specific rules on health and safety relate to working time and work organisation, overtime, holidays and special leave.
4.3.3. Par t-time workers and precarious work In most countries the share of part-time work is greater in hotels and restaurants than in the rest of the economy. According to the sector report of the Eurofound (Klein Hesselink, 2004), part-time work is also related to gender. Women work more often in part-time jobs than men in the sector. Many women work part-time in canteens and catering and in the fast-food subsectors. There is a large amount of casual work in the hotels and restaurants sector. This is often linked to seasonal variations in the sector, with short periods of sometimes rather unpredictable employment. On-call work and so-called zero hours contracts, which give the worker no guarantee of work, mean that the worker is sometimes notified on very short notice (8). This leaves the worker in a very vulnerable situation. Casual workers report greater work–life balance problems than full-time employees (Bohle, 2004). According to a report by London Economics (2003) on working conditions in French hotels and restaurants, seasonal workers have very little access to social protection. This means they often fail to have access to benefit rights because they are subject to many different regimes during their working life and consequently do not build up the required level of contribution. Young seasonal workers who work short periods of time and alternate between seasonal employment and unemployment have particular problems in qulaifying for national security programmes. (8) In this case there is a formal agreement between employer and worker but without a fixed commitment by the employer concerning the number of days a week, month or year on which workers will have work. It gives the workers no guarantee of work, but they agree to be available if and when the employer demands. In this case the employer is not obliged to find work and the worker stays without any remuneration when there is no work available. Generally the relationship between the employer and worker is not characterised by ‘mutuality of obligation’. The employer is not obliged to find work and the employee is not obliged to accept what is offered.
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