Report reveals few major changes to working time

The annual survey of negotiated working time by the EIRO industrial relations observatory reveals few changes in working time across the European Union. Perhaps surprisingly it makes no reference to developments in Germany where ver.di has managed to resist employer attempts to impose longer working hours on all public sector workers. In fact, the survey notes a 0.1-hour increase for Germany as a whole as a result of increases in Eastern Germany. The only other change at country level was a small decrease in negotiated hours in Portugal. The survey monitors hours in six sectors and finds that

The latest review of working time developments by the Eurofound research agency notes increased debates around the issue of working time reduction but few examples of where this has been implemented in practice. It reports on a couple of examples of shorter working hours in the private and non-profit health and social care sectors in Austria and a municipal company in Portugal. The public sector agreement in Lithuania includes additional day’s leave for education and training while national legislation there now allows for a 32-hour/four-day week for state and municipal employees who have

The annual working time survey by the EIRO industrial relations observatory found that in almost all countries, average agreed weekly working hours in 2008 were identical to those in 2007. The only exceptions were a small decrease (- 0.4 hours) in Slovakia and a small rise (+ 0.4 hours) in Spain. The survey points out that there have been no notable reductions in hours since 2003 and that the issue has more or less disappeared from the bargaining agenda. The survey also examined working time in local government and found virtually no change across Europe between 2007 and 2008 with the