The 35 hour week in Europe
Growing sectors of the labour movement in Western Europe are calling for reductions in the working week, to create new jobs, and reclaim some of the benefits of productivity increases registered during the past last decade. In each country, employers and the media claim this will destroy jobs, because none of the other countries will follow suit. Many workers are concerned that a shorter week could mean a lower wage. Or that they will have to do the same job, but in less time. In the following pages, our correspondents in France, Belgium, Italy, Germany, and Holland discuss the dynamics of the campaign for shorter hours. 24 International Viewpoint #297
In this introduction, Michel Dupont looks at the similarities and differences across Europe The European Union is an essentially capitalist project. Particularly since the Single Market Act of 1985, EU economic policies have concentrated on reducing barriers to the free circulation of capital between the member states. "Harmonisation through progress," supposedly one of the objectives of the Treaty of Rome, which is the basis of EU legislation, has never been seriously pursued. On the contrary, the race for competitiveness and reduction of public sector deficits has led each member country to increase the pressure on wages and social programmes — in the name of European integration!
From 1960 to the early 1980s, most European countries experienced a general tendency towards the reduction of the working week. But this was not the result of European Community policies. It reflected a shift in strategy by the labour movement. With the post-war reconstruction largely complete, the working classes and the trade unions in each country began to demand that employers share the benefits of productivity increases with the workforce, through a reduction in the number of hours people worked.
Considerable diversity marked this general trend. Some countries started at the beginning of the 1960s, others at the end of that decade. In the Scandinavian countries, the mechanism of progress was calm, constant negotiation, whereas in France and Italy the massive social upsurge in 1969-69 played a crucial role
This diversity reflects the fact that the reduction of labour time is not, as France's social democratic government pretends, some kind of long-term trend, which was - somehow - interrupted by the "crisis" of the 1980s. In fact, cuts in the working week are the result of a fundamentally conflictive process - the redistribution of the gains from improvements in productivity, and increases in national income. This conflictive reality was clearly shown in the 1980s and 1990s. The long process of downward convergence of working time across Western Europe was broken by the anti-labour offensives of each national bourgeoisie.
Three groups of countries emerged. In Britain (but only in Britain) the neoliberal offensive had immediate success, leading to a massive de-regulation of labour time, and all other aspects of working conditions. This has inevitably led to an extreme variation in the number of hours people in Britain work.
In a second group of countries -France, Italy, Belgium, and Ireland - the working week either stayed the same or declined slightly during the 1980s (France adopted a 39-hour week in 1982).
In the third group - Germany, Holland, Denmark, and Norway - the workers' movement was able to maintain the pressure, and working time continued to decline, despite management's hostility.
In 1979, a series of strikes took place in the metalworking industry in favour of the 35-hour week. This movement succeeded in imposing a reduction of the 'normal' week to 39 hours in the metalworking and some other sectors. But as the Thatcher era took hold, the average working week for full-time workers began to increase Overtime expanded so much that, by 1992, more than one quarter of men were working more than 48 hours a week.
Meanwhile, the average working week for the whole workforce declined, because of the significant increase in part-time work. One quarter of the workforce, and half of all women workers, are part-time in Britain today. The attractiveness of part-time work for the employers is obvious — they pay no social security contributions for employees who work less than 16 hours a week (and nor do those workers have access to most of these benefits).
There has been an unprecedented widening of the range of working-hours across the economy, between men and women, and between those with different levels of qualification.
In 1989, after a new series of strikes in the metalworking sector, again concerning reductions in labour time, the employers decided to sabotage that industry's collective bargaining process [which had always had a broader impact on labour relations in the country]. Some large enterprises like the auto producers Rover and Ford introduced a basic 37-hour week, but continued to rely massively on overtime work.
Without collective bargaining, working hours are negotiated companyby-company, factory-by-factory or, in most cases, not negotiated at all, but imposed by the employer.
Since Britain has never had a legally enforced maximum working week [until the European Union limit of 48 hours was accepted], the collapse of collective bargaining has meant a massive return of employer arbitrariness, everywhere the unions are not strong enough to impose negotiations. Employment blackmail
It is in the second group of countries -France, Italy, and Belgium in particular-
that the reduction of working time has returned to centre-stage in the 1990s. However, nowadays the argument is from the employers — using the threat of unemployment to reduce salaries in enterprises "in difficulty"
In France, part time work has grown from involving 5% of the workforce in 1980 to 15% in 1997. Apart from the effect of this part-time work, average labour time has not been reduced since
In 1995, the conservative-dominated parliament approved the Robien Law, which established a system of public financing to smooth the introduction of a 35 or 32-hour week in almost 1,500 small and medium enterprises. The macroeconomic results are negligible — 25,000 jobs created or protected, and a 0.1% reduction in average labour time across the economy!
Similar legislation is being applied in Belgium, as Alain Tondeur explains (p.29). In Spain, 1983 legislation fixed a maximum working week of 40 hours, but in most cases defined this as the average weekly hours during a one-year period. This has led to a growing diversity of working patterns. Despite the relative marginal importance of part-time work only 8% of the workforce in 1996), the average working time across the economy fell from 1,900 hours/year in 1983 to 1,800 hours in 1993.
In Italy, the fascist legislation of 1923, which fixed a 48-hour week, was only replaced by 40 hour legislation in 1997, though a series of labour struggles in the 1970s actually established a week of 40 hours or less in most branches of the economy. In the early 1990s, a series of experiments in reducing labour time took place, smoothed with public funds, in companies that were threatening to cut jobs. But as Gianni Rigacci explains, only the Refounded Communist Party and the left in the trade unions propose a generalised reduction in working hours. (p.27) Collective and individual
In the third group of countries, most of the reduction in working time during the 1980s was due to the increase in part-time work. Germany is an exception (p.32) Although Nazi legislation fixing a maximum 60-hour, six day week is still in force, collective bargaining has imposed, across the economy, shorter maximum hours. After the campaign led by the IG Metall union in the 1980s, the metalworking industry functions with a basic week of 35
Although these collective agreements have allowed a greater implementation of "flexibility" measures, German workers still enjoy more protection in terms of labour time than in most other European
Nevertheless, the recession in 1993 led to multiple-fold increase in the number of enterprise-level agreements to reduce average working time, in exchange for maintaining all or most existing jobs. In other words, shortening the working week is no longer an offensive weapon of the labour movement for creating jobs, but a tool of the employers for reducing salaries and imposing "flexible" working con-
In Denmark, the state imposed a reduction of the legal basic week from 40 to 39 hours in 1985, after the failure of negotiations aimed at introducing a wage freeze. Two years later, the powerful LO trade union was able to force a further reduction, to 37 hours, by conventional means. And since 1996, workers have been able to take long breaks from work. paid at 70% of the unemployment benefit level, provided that they are replaced by someone who is unemployed
The Netherlands has been presented as a "model" of wage restraint. Real salaries fell 5% between 1982 and 1985, with an average 2 hour/week reduction in working time. Subsequent years saw faster economic growth. A trade union offensive in 1994-5 led to further reductions in working time in banking, the chemical industry, and local government services. One third of professional services will move to a 36 hour week during 1998.
In 1996 the Dutch-based multinational Phillips launched a counter-offensive, arguing for an increase in salaries (6% over two years) rather than further cuts in working time.
The Dutch trade unions are no longer prioritising the collective reduction of labour time. (p.33) Instead, they are encoung par the de vork. The social sectrial part-time work. The social security benefits of part-time workers in Holland are far superior to those in counties like France, let alone post-Thatcher Britain. According to the 1993 agreement between trade unions and employers, part-time workers have, in principle, the right to specify their total hours. If the employer refuses, s/he has the obligation to prove that this is not possible!
"Long" part-time work is an important trend in Sweden too. Unlike the other countries of Western Europe, average working time has been increasing in Sweden. This is mainly because part-time workers, mainly women (42% of women workers are part-time), have been increasing the number of hours they work.
Unlike in Britain, the gap between average hours worked by men and women is actually narrowing. Sixty percent of Swedish part-time workers work more than 20 hours/week, compared to an EU average of only 38%. Generally speaking, part-time status in Sweden is less of a discriminatory position than in the rest of the EU. Part-time jobs do not, generally, demand lower qualifications than their full-time equivalents.
The situation is not very good for young workers, though. A number of unskilled young workers are trapped in dead-end part-time contracts.
All this goes a long way towards exp-
Dossier * laining the lack of enthusiasm of the Swedish trade unions for the collective reduction of average labour time. If part time work can be negotiated and chosen by the individual in good conditions, why impose a general, uniform framework? However, the growing unemployment and social inequality in Sweden since the early 1990s may lead some sections of the labour movement to reconsider this European action for a shorter week
Despite the deregulation of working time, and the expansion of part-time work everywhere (except Britain, where these changes occurred much earlier, and Spain, where part-time work is still very underdeveloped), it is still the case that most workers in the EU live in countries where the working week is regulated - by negotiations between unions and employers, or by law. This provides a clear basis for a Europe-wide movement to re-regulate working relations.
Despite neo-liberal calls for "subsi-
[returning power to the lowest possible level at which decisions can be made effectively], working time is still a responsibility of the European Commission in Brussels. A 1975 recommendation (never applied, like most social recommendations) called on member states to take the necessary measures for the generalisation of a 40 hour-week, without loss of salary, and four weeks paid annual
Article 118A of the Single Market Act (1986) makes it possible to adopt, by a qualified majority of states, those directives concerning labour time that aim to protect the health and well-being of
In 1993, after pathetic procrastination and hesitation, the European Commission finally produced a directive, fixing the maximum working week at 48 hours, defined as a weekly average over four months. This directive imposes 11 hours daily rest (the minimum time between the end of one shift and the beginning of the next) and a break of at least 24 hours every week. Paid holiday is fixed at a
In other words, the EU is fixing worse minimum conditions than exist in everv member state except Britain, which refused to approve the directive. The directive contains a large number of exceptions, notably for the transport industry, where European harmonisation is most urgent Most of its provisions can be overruled by undefined "collective agreements." And, worst of all, countries can ignore the weekly maximum if there is an "agreement" between the employer and the employee concerned.
No surprise, then, that, outside Britain, European employers' associations hardly protested the new directive.
The British government, under John Major, decided to attack the directive as a matter of principle [can Brussels inter-
should be able to supervise the appli- been defined through class struggle. The cation of these reforms in their workplaces. same is true in 1998. *
* The 35 hour week in Europe fere' in British labour relations], rather than use the numerous escape clauses to empty the directive of its contents. [In 1995 the British government had been obliged to improve the status and social protection of part-time workers, most of who are women, because of EU legislation against sexual discrimination.]
In December 1996, the European Court of Justice rejected Britain's protest against the directive on maximum labour time. The application of the clauses on the maximum 48-hour week and four weeks paid annual holiday, represents significant progress for many British workers. A real social Europe
Of course, this is not enough. Reduction in labour time should become a major axis of European integration. Not just to improve living and working conditions, but also as a way of cutting unemployment, and reducing the unequal distribution of wealth.
The 1993 directive is a weak caricature of the "Social Europe" we should fight for. We should push for a new directive, establishing a 35-hour week, without loss of pay, in all member states, to be introduced by negotiation or by law, within a fixed period — no more than one
The details of negotiation (enterprise, sector, or national) and implementation should be left to the national level, given the significant, legitimate differences between the member states. But the directive should fix the general principles of job creation, measuring work time on a basis [rather than averages], and limiting exceptions to the strictly necessary.
The goal would be a "levelling up" of national norms, in a dynamic of progress. German, French, or Italian advances on the 35-hour week should be generalised. And so should Dutch and Swedish social security benefits for part-time workers.
Of course, raising these Europe-wide demands does not mean spreading the illusion that the European Commission and European Council, in their present form, and within the Maastricht straightjacket, could concede easily.
But without common demands, and mobilisation of the labour and social movements around themes like the reduction in work time, advances by the labour movement in each country will be partial and fragile. The single market will make it easier for employers and the state to oppose, and roll back gains at the national level. * In the absence of this kind of movement, many workers have serious reser-