Shops are allowed to open on Sundays between 6am and 1pm, with the exception of six Sundays a year when longer opening hours are permitted. However, staff can only work four hours under current rules.

A spate of checks carried out by the Inspection du travail et des mines last December showed that many businesses don’t follow the law. Labour union OGBL in January kicked off talks with the Luxembourg commerce confederation (CLC) to work out a new system.

The CLC has proposed giving employees a balance of 156 Sunday hours per year. This would allow business owners to have staff work longer hours on individual days, but wouldn’t increase the number of hours employees can be called in to work on Sundays annually.

The OGBL said it would agree to the measure, but only as a temporary solution for one year during which it wants to renegotiate Sunday working hours as part of a collective work agreement. This would also regulate compensation for employees, such as a bonus, lieu days or extra holidays.

However, while for bigger companies this means simply amending existing agreements, many smaller businesses don’t have collective work agreements. And the CLC doesn’t foresee establishing one for the retail sector.

Collective work agreements regulate working conditions and salaries in companies or entire sectors, but they cannot undercut minimum standards set in Luxembourg’s labour law.

Talks between both sides continue.

This article was first published on paperjam.lu and has been translated and edited for Delano.