Flexible working hours

Flexible working hours can be important for working parents or those with caring responsibilities, so that they can more easily reconcile their work with their private life. This can be particularly important for women and could mean that they are more likely to stay in full-time work rather than leaving work or going part time which can effect their career and salary prospects.

Austria

| Trade union: VIDA | Sector: Private health |

Flexible working hours have been introduced in the majority of Austrian institutions.

Czech Republic

| Trade union: TUHSSC | Sector: Health and Social Services |

The union has not engaged in social dialogue on this issue. However, considering the nature of activities and work in the health and social services sector, flexible working hours are impossible for most professions here. In both fields, the round-the-clock operations preclude any possibility of flexible working hours.

Denmark

| Trade union: HK Stat | Sector: National administration |

Our members are employed within the administrative, IT and government laboratories technicians sectors, etc. The vast majority have entered into agreements at their current workplace concerning “flexitime”. Local arrangements include employees being able to not only to decide their arrival/departure time – but also simply agreeing to be at work during a given time period – e.g. 9am – 3pm. The employee can plan the final hour and 24 minutes of each day individually. In addition, in all agreements leave for overtime may be taken in lieu at some point - and there may be reduction of hours for some individuals who must work these later. It is so rare that employees do not have flexitime that we are seldom involved in cases where the employer fails to make allowances, e.g. problems with collection of children in care, and so on.

| Trade union: FOA | Sector: Municipal |

Agreed locally

Estonia

| Trade union: ROTAL | Sectors: National administration, Municipal |

Mostly employees are employed full-time.

Finland

| Trade union: FIPSU | Sector: Public sector |

Flexible working hours, working-hours-bank systems, temporary child-care leave, the right to partial child-care leave, job alternation leave, etc.

France

| Trade union: FNEM-FO | Sector: Energy |

There is some working time flexibility. Mothers have extra days' leave. Otherwise it is possible to reorganise or reduce working time on an individual or collective basis for both men and women and with agreement with management.

Germany

| Trade union: ver.di | Sector: Public sector |

The TVöD public sector collective agreement provides opportunities for flexible working. These include working time accounts and corridors. Where these practices are implemented correctly and fairly, they enable workers to achieve a better work-life balance. However, there is also evidence that employers attempt to use the opportunities for greater flexibility for their own benefit, thereby misusing them for the purpose of greater exploitation of the workers

Moldova

| Trade union: Sanatatea | Sector: Health |

The employment laws of the Republic of Moldova, collective conventions and collective agreements, allow for a number of dispensations for women. The Collective (Sector-Wide) Convention and institution-level collective agreements provide for a flexitime system.

Netherlands

| Trade union: Abvakabo | Sector: Public sector |

Flexibility of working hours can be an important issue in collective bargaining, as recently in the nursing, care home and home care sector. Abvakabo FNV wants to ensure that work and private life are much better coordinated.

| Trade union: NU 91 | Sector: Health |

This is a big issue in the healthcare sector. We have major discussions with employers because they want more flexibility in working hours from their perspective but don’t want to consider employees' wishes on this matter.

Norway

|Trade union: Fagforbundet | Sector: Municipal |

The Union has no particular desire to negotiate at central level concerning flexible working hours within the tariff agreement. The Working Environment Act provides the right to reduced working hours for employees who, on health, social or welfare grounds, have a need to reduce their working hours. This provision is in addition to rights during pregnancy, birth, adoption or care for sick relatives, or a sick child minder. Negotiations for flexible working hours can be made with individual agencies or municipalities, but the result must be within the provisions for working hours in laws and agreements.

Romania

| Trade union: Sanitas | Sector: Health |

After the negotiations through the Collective Agreement we have managed to get flexibility of working hours.

Slovakia

| Trade union: Sozzass | Health |

The health sector requires continuous operation and flexible working hours might be used only for some technical-economic workers, independent of patients requests and needs.

Sweden

| Trade union: Kommunal | Sector: Municipal blue collar |

Within Kommunal’s contractual areas there are several local agreements concerning flexible working hours. The objective is usually a combination of providing staff with greater influence over their working hours, but also to create more flexible staffing. Kommunal’s monitoring aims to ensure that models for flexible working hours do not increase the workload for employees and that there is adequate numbers of basic staff.

UK

| Trade union: FBU | Sector: Fire Service |

Flexible working, including job share, is not a well practiced or a recognised provision across the Fire Service (particularly within firefighting roles) to those with caring or childcare demands. This does have a large impact on the retention of women in the service, particularly when returning to work following childbirth.

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The ETUC Executive Committee agreed a resolution on collective bargaining at the beginning of December that warns of the dangers of “excessive flexibility”. The ETUC argues that employers appear to be putting the emphasis on getting more flexible working arrangements rather than on increasing working time. It is calling on affiliates to raise the issue of precarious employment in their negotiations in 2006, to challenge flexibility that is only in the employers' interest and to report back to the Collective Bargaining Committee next May. The resolution also suggests that more should be done

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Sep. 03, 2007

Public administration shows wide range in flexible working

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This report on flexible working hours by the European statistics agency, Eurostat, found that on average in the EU-25, the proportion of women employed in public administration with some flexibility over working hours was larger - at almost 40% - than in other sectors of economic activity. It was especially large in Denmark, Germany and Finland, at around 75% or more. In many countries, however - Greece, Spain, Italy, Portugal, Hungary, Slovenia, Cyprus and Malta as well as Romania - very few women (under 5%) had flexibility over hours of work in this sector. [Read more at > Eurostat (EN, FR

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