It wasn’t quite a week ago that Robert Habeck attracted attention with a controversial remark. The Federal Minister of Economics said last Wednesday that there were “too many strikes or campaigns for less and less work” – and was also criticized for this in his own left-green camp, the majority of which find strikes and shorter working hours very acceptable.
In fact, Habeck hit a nerve with his criticism; The demand for shorter working hours, which previously had a niche existence in left-wing utopias, has increasingly become the focus of social debates in recent months. To a certain extent this is due to the train drivers’ union GDL, which has been drumming particularly loudly for the 35-hour week at the railway in its collective bargaining round since November – ultimately with success, as was shown this Tuesday.
However, the idea of implementing reductions in working hours is not exclusive to the train drivers. The unions have been preparing concepts for this for years; One of the pioneers is IG Metall, which fought for a 35-hour week in the West German metal industry in 1995. Last year, the union failed in its push to introduce a 32-hour week in the steel industry. Union leader Christiane Benner believes that such demands are a key to making jobs in the industry attractive for the future – and she has a particular eye on younger workers who value shorter working hours.
As inflation falls, the idea becomes more attractive again
The fact that the discussion has not become louder in recent years is mainly due to the Russian attack on Ukraine and the energy crisis it triggered. Because inflation continued to climb to new heights, most unions left their working time concepts in the drawer and concentrated primarily on pushing through higher wages and inflation-compensating bonuses. But now that inflation rates have fallen significantly again, employee representatives are making the appropriate preparations for the upcoming collective bargaining rounds. Verdi also assumes that the issue will become much bigger in the coming months.
The unions are sure that they are responding to the wishes of their members. They are based, for example, on a survey that the Hans Böckler Foundation published in May last year: 81 percent of employees want to work a four-day week if they don’t have to forego money. They also consider the opportunity to enforce such demands to be a good one: as more and more people are retiring and comparatively few employees are joining them, they are in an extremely good negotiating position.
Companies are already recruiting employees with four-day weeks
Many employers also see this out of necessity: a number of companies, agencies and craft businesses are now offering a four-day week in order to have an advantage in the competition for workers. However, economists and employer representatives warn that the development could harm the economy as a whole: too little will then be produced. This threatens prosperity, warns economist Michael Hüther from the German Economic Institute in Cologne; A reduction in working hours such as the four-day week is therefore an “unrealistic dream”.
Choice models in which employees choose between more free time and more money could potentially be a way out of this dilemma. This is also the idea of the agreement between the GDL and the railway: Some train drivers and train attendants will now reduce their working hours to 35 hours; others will probably even increase it from 38 to 40 hours. Because for every hour they work more, they get 2.7 percent more pay.
Similar choice models between more vacation time and more money exist in the chemical and metal industries, and the railway has already had experience with this: In its 2018 collective bargaining round, the EVG implemented a model according to which employees can choose between additional vacation days and more being able to choose money; A third of employees therefore decide against more vacation days and in favor of more money.
Even GDL boss Claus Weselsky sees that some train drivers would prefer to work more; On Tuesday, for example, he reported on his experiences with the 35-hour week at rail competitor Netinera. “A number of colleagues” there voluntarily chose the 40-hour week. Deutsche Bahn can now also hope for this.