The Landesarbeitsgericht (LAG) Thüringen, a regional labour court in the German federal state of Thuringia, has sharpened a conceptual distinction in a ruling that is relevant to the protection of pregnant and breastfeeding employees against night work. The case itself concerned a dispute over a night shift allowance for work performed between 8:00 p.m. and 10:00 p.m. within a so-called “Spätschicht” (late shift). The court held that a genuine “night shift” (Nachtschicht) only exists where work is performed predominantly during night-time hours, and that work carried out in the early evening does not automatically fall under that category.
For the application of the German Mutterschutzgesetz, however, that distinction makes no difference, according to the explanatory reasoning behind the ruling. The statutory prohibition on night work for pregnant and breastfeeding employees applies in Germany to the period between 8:00 p.m. and 6:00 a.m., regardless of whether the employee concerned works a “night shift” under the company’s standard shift system or is merely deployed occasionally during the late evening hours. In other words, the narrower concept of “night shift work” used in pay structures and allowance schemes is not determinative of the scope of the statutory protective measure.
Under section 5 of the Mutterschutzgesetz, employers are, in principle, not permitted to have pregnant or breastfeeding employees work between 8:00 p.m. and 6:00 a.m. Exceptions are only possible under strict conditions: consent from the employee herself, a medical certificate confirming that no health risk exists, oversight by a competent authority and, in practice, additional arrangements with the employer.
This clarification is relevant to EHS professionals for two reasons. First, the ruling underscores that shift schedules and internal definitions of “night shift” — as commonly used in collective bargaining agreements or company regulations for calculating allowances — cannot simply be relied upon to limit the scope of statutory labour protection rules. Those responsible for scheduling and rostering pregnant or breastfeeding employees must base their planning on the statutory time windows, not on internal shift logic. Second, the case illustrates how German courts may interpret concepts from working-time law and maternity protection law separately, even where they are used interchangeably in practice — a point worth noting when drafting or reviewing company policy on night work, risk assessments for pregnant employees, and compliance with comparable regulations in other EU member states.
Source: Mutterschutzgesetz: Nachtarbeit für schwangere und stillende Arbeitnehmerinnen, 31 August 2026, https://www.haufe.de/arbeitsschutz/gesundheit-umwelt/nachtarbeit-und-mutterschutz_94_694746.html
