Things are not going well with the introduction of night work in Belgium. Six months after night work was allowed in the country, to give Belgian online shops a boost, few e-commerce companies are taking advantage of it. Business-level negotiations would come to nothing, trade federations told The Editorial.
Because night work was previously banned in Belgium, online shops could not offer the "order until 23.59, delivered the next day" option. As a result, Belgian consumers often ordered across the border. Late last year, the government decided that night work would still be allowed. However, according to trade federation Comeos, an individual agreement with a distribution company has not been reached since then. "It remains enormously difficult to be able to work at night in our sectors. Unfortunately, that has not been settled with the agreement."
Read also: 'Belgian webshops see the Netherlands as a logistics Valhalla'
Tailor-made collective labour agreement
Indeed, each company has to fill in the framework collective labour agreement drawn up in December on a tailor-made basis. This causes long negotiation periods between the company and the unions. "The culture in our country is completely different from that in the Netherlands, for example. There, it is quite normal to have to work at 11pm. Why with us it always has to be approved by the secretary of the unions," Dominique Michel of Comeos told De Redactie.be.
Trade federations are therefore hoping for a culture change in order to compete with neighbouring countries. If it does not lead to an agreement, Comeos will still knock on the Belgian government's door. They need to remove the blockades of social partners.
Editorial LogistiekProfs
