Following a surge in interest among local branches, the Forsa public services union has launched a debate about working time reduction with an international conference in Dublin on 22 November. The union underlines the potential of digitalisation to increase productivity and create the potential for a shorter working week. The conference included contributions from the UK where the Trade Union Confederation has called for a four-day week and from Germany where the IG Metall engineering union has negotiated major new agreements providing the potential for employees to reduce their working time.
Union launches working time debate
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Crisis rekindles working time debate
The economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and the widespread use of short-time working in response has rekindled the debate about permanent shifts to shorter working hours. Germany's biggest engineering union, IG Metall, has put forward ideas about a move to a 32-hour week and this had been taken up by the CGT trade union confederation in France which has had a 32-hour-week policy for some time. In the UK, the Autonomy research organisation has proposed and costed a plan for the public sector to take the lead and move to a 32-hour week without loss of pay.
Union leader launches working time debate
Wolfgang Katzian, leader of the GPA-DJP union that organises across the private sector including in electricity and health and social services, has called for a new 40-40-40 working time model. He is suggesting that a working career should be limited to 40 years, while the working week should be no more than 40 hours and that the working year should be only 40 weeks long. He argues that this would give workers more time for training and education as well as more time to rest and recuperate and so lessen time off work for sickness. [Read more at > GPA-DJP (DE)->http://www.gpa.at/servlet