What you should know.

Your working hours as a seasonal worker

There are a few important things you should know about your working hours. Your employer must comply with the Working Hours Act. The law protects you from working excessively long hours, regulates breaks and rest periods, night and Sunday work.

Inhaltsverzeichnis

    • Legal rules

      Working hours in the employment contract

      The working hours are agreed in advance with your boss. These should also be included in your employment contract. Overtime must be paid.

    • Legal rules

      Working hours

      You should know how many hours you are allowed to work per day and per week. There are legal rules that your boss must adhere to. The regular working hours per week in agriculture can be 48 hours over 6 days.

      • Your normal working hours must not exceed 10 hours per day.
      • In exceptional cases, your working hours may be up to 12 hours.

    • Legal requirements

      Breaks

      • After 6 hours of work, you must take a break of at least 30 minutes.

      • If you work for more than 9 hours, you must take a break of at least 45 minutes.

      • Breaks do not count as working time and are not paid.

    • Legal rules

      Recording of working time

      Your employer must record this information:

      • Start and end of your working hours
      • Start and end of your breaks
      • Duration of your daily working hours


      You should also write down your hours yourself, for example on a timesheet. This way you can check that you are always paid correctly. Write down this information:

      • the start and end of working hours. Working time begins when you are standing in a field, on the farm or in other places on the farm and start working
      • the places of work
      • break times, even if these are not part of working time
      • the boxes or kilograms delivered, if you are paid by harvest quantity

    Further questions about the minimum wage and help with problems

    If you have further questions or problems, there are places that can help you. You can find out more on the website Fair Mobility.
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