Quelle: WSI
: Issue 01/2025
WSI-MITTEILUNGEN 1/2025
Knud Andresen, Svea Gruber, Anna Horstmann
The Strike for the 35-hour Week. Bargaining Processes and Trade Union Strategy Development
Abstract
The 1984 strike for the 35-hour week is a milestone in the history of German trade union working time struggles. On the one hand, this is due to the fierceness of the struggle and its long-term consequences in terms of labour law. On the other hand, it was also decisive for trade union strategy development processes. The reduction of working hours was less a matter of debate than the question which form it should take. In addition to economic realities and the balance of power in collective bargaining, changing social perceptions of time regimes also played a decisive role in strategy development. A gradual reduction in working hours towards a 35-hour week was achieved in the printing and metal industries, but this was linked to concessions to the employers’ efforts to make working hours more flexible and led to a decentralisation of working time policy in the long term. Early retirement schemes were also introduced from 1984 but were later repealed. more … (in German)
WSI-MITTEILUNGEN 1/2025
Richard Detje, Nicole Mayer-Ahuja
Giving Work a New Scale. Lessons from the 35-hour Workweek Struggle for Today’s Time Conflicts
Abstract
40 years after the struggle for a 35-hour workweek in the Western German metal, electrical, and printing industries, the quest for reduced work hours is once more at the centre of discussions. Although just like in 1984, it’s all about securing jobs, a first move towards a four-day week, which is preferred by the vast majority of wage earners, has just been put on hold in the steel industry. An ongoing pilot project, advocating 80 percent of hours at 100 percent performance and 100 percent pay, points to a risk of further intensification rather than the humanisation of work fought for in the 1980s. In the industries, performance regulation apt to prevent this development is hardly pursued anymore, while the health care sector, for example, is fighting for statutory assessment of staffing needs. It’s still all about more time to “live, love and laugh” and to care for others ; to be achieved through individual choices and collective agreements. However, a shorter workweek is not appealing to all. For those in involuntary part-time work, it means longer workdays to secure subsistence wages. “Short full-time employment for all” may serve as a unifying bond in new working time policy initiatives: 80 percent of hours at 80 percent performance and 100 percent pay. more … (in German)
WSI-MITTEILUNGEN 1/2025
Alexandra Mellies, Anja-Kristin Abendroth, Ann-Christin Bächmann, Kevin Ruf
Spoilt for Choice? The Social Structuring of the Collectively Agreed Choice between Time and Money
Abstract
Several trade unions in Germany have pushed through flexible working time arrangements recently, giving employees the choice between more time and more money. With this choice, employees can adapt their working hours to different stages of life in a more flexible manner. Using a linked employer-employee dataset, the article analyses gender- and parenthood-specific choices of time as well as the underlying motives. The findings reveal that women are more likely to choose time over money. In addition, mothers and fathers are significantly more likely to mention hobbies, friends and time for themselves as the most important reasons for choosing time over money than women and men living in households without children under the age of 14. Therefore, the findings suggest that gender- and parenthood-specific differences can be found in the context of the choice option, too. more … (in German)
WSI-MITTEILUNGEN 1/2025
Marvin Ayodele Classow, Peter Birke
Individual and Collective Politics of Interest Representation. A Historical Comparison of the Handling of Working Time in Inpatient Care for the Elderly
Abstract
Stationary care for the elderly is considered to be problematic not only in terms of poor working conditions and the resulting turnover, but also with regard to possibilities for union representation. But why does it seem so difficult to productively combine employee actions and the organising efforts of unions for the purpose of better working and care conditions? Based on interviews from around 1990 and the present, this article discusses what strategies allow employees to improve their own work situations. The exploratory comparison of qualitative interviews from 1990 and today hints at changed forms of “working time acrobatics”, which are significant in terms of union organisation. Employees’ handling of working hours mainly aims at individual improvements in their own work situations and undermines the efforts of unions to organise them collectively. The challenge of finding new, and different, union politics of tackling everyday work and life thus becomes apparent in the field of stationary care work for the elderly. more … (in German)
WSI-MITTEILUNGEN 1/2025
Brigitte Aulenbacher, Ewa Palenga-Möllenbeck, Karin Schwiter
Unlimited Availability – Limited Negotiability. Working Time as a Key Conflict in Live-in Care
Abstract
This article addresses the issue of live-in care in Germany, Austria and Switzerland and shows how working time is a key conflict in the regulation and the everyday organisation and practice of this type of work. First, the authors tie the concept of “work as an ensemble” to further approaches of feminist labour studies and identify structural commonalities in the ensemble of activities carried out by live-in care workers. Second, they present the regulation of and the controversy over working time in live-in care in Germany, Austria and Switzerland, where these workers are either posted, self-employed or employed. In a third step, the authors focus on the organisation of work in the household. Although regulations differ between the countries, unlimited access to care workers emerges as inherent to the live-in setting. In their conclusions, the authors argue that the conflict around working time cannot be solved within this setting and that fundamental change is required. more … (in German)
WSI-MITTEILUNGEN 1/2025
Ines Entgelmeier, Johanna Nold
Working Time – Opportunities and Challenges for Reconciliation. A Gender and Parental Perspective
Abstract
Based on analyses of the 2023 working time survey by the Federal Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (Bundesanstalt für Arbeitsschutz und Arbeitsmedizin), this article shows that the working time of men and women with and without children differs significantly in terms of length, location, and temporal and spatial flexibility. Men and fathers have longer working hours, do more overtime and work atypical hours more often than women and mothers. Men and fathers also have more opportunities for flexibility. They have more influence over the start and end of their working hours and the days they can work from home. Women and mothers continue to work part-time significantly more often than men and fathers, citing family commitments as the main reason. Despite more demanding working hours, men with and without children rate their work-life balance better than women with and without children. more … (in German)
WSI-MITTEILUNGEN 1/2025
Dana Lützkendorf
The Berlin Hospital Movement. A Practical Example of the Fight for More Time for Good Work and a Good Life
Abstract
At Berlin's largest university hospital, the Charité, a successful collective bargaining campaign for higher wages led to increasing self-confidence among nursing staff. Coupled with discontent over staff cuts due to misguided hospital policies, this positive experience encouraged union activists at the Charité to organise a collective bargaining campaign for more staff at the hospital in 2015, the first of its kind in Germany. Approaches from Jane McAlevey's organising concept were used to empower employees, increase their involvement, strengthen democracy in the disputes and thus reinforce employees’ power position. The successful campaign, which – after long disputes – finally led to better working conditions through binding staff regulations in a collective agreement, laid the foundation for the Berlin Hospital Movement. The article describes the stages of development and the conflicts and resistance that had to be overcome, reflects on the conditions for success, and draws lessons from the experience gained. more … (in German)
WSI-MITTEILUNGEN 1/2025
Hans-Jürgen Urban
Work, Life, Transformation. Work and Time Policies in Transformative Capitalism
Abstract
The triad of justifications based on labour market, humanisation and everyday cultural arguments is a constant in trade union work and time policy. The relative weight of the individual strands of justification is closely linked to the respective social, above all socio-economic and cultural, contexts. In the near future, the regulation of flexible work in terms of location and time, securing employment in the ecological transformation, and distribution issues in vocational training are likely to be on the agenda. It can also be expected that trade unions will be facing a phase of new, fierce labour and time conflicts, as employers formulate demands for longer and more flexible working hours, shorter rest periods and the abolition of the employer's obligation to record working hours. more … (in German)