„Tertiarisation“, work organisation and working-time ... · „Tertiarisation“, work organisation and working-time regulation Abstract There is a widely held view that existing

International Conference “The economics and socio-economics of services:international perspectives”, Lille / Roubaix, 22 – 23 June 2000

Steffen Lehndorff*

„Tertiarisation“, work organisation and working-time regulation

Abstract

There is a widely held view that existing forms of labour market and, in particular, working timeregulation in various continental European countries are no longer able to meet the economicneeds of the future, since the “tertiarisation” requires flexibility and diversity in terms of products,employment and working-time forms. In the present paper, the “market orientation” of work inboth services and manufacturing, rather than “tertiarisation”, is favoured as an alternativeparadigm which creates room for the advent of “passive“ as well as “active“ approaches totemporal flexibility. The paper discusses the driving factors behind these trends as well as majorchallenges for future working-time regulation, including the implications of continuously risingfemale labour market participation and the “individualisation“ of working-time organisation withinflexible working-time systems.

Contents

1 The cycle of working-time regulation

1.1 The rise to stability

1.2 The foundations undermined

1.3 A change of paradigm in wok organisation

2 New forms of working-time organisation

2.1 The extension of operating and opening hours

2.2 The flexibilisation of working times and operating hours

3 Work organisation and working-time regulation

3.1 The challenge to working-time regulation from passive flexibility

3.2 The challenge to working-time regulation from active flexibility

3.3 Marginal phenomena or harbingers of the social polarisation of working times?

4 The search for new models of working-time regulation

4.1 A new time arrangement (1): women's employment

4.2 A new time arrangement (2): work organisation

5 The outlook

Annexe: Figures and tables

* Dr. Steffen Lehndorff, Institut Arbeit und Technik / Wissenschaftszentrum Nordrhein-Westfalen,Abteilung Arbeitsmarkt, Munscheidstr. 14, D-45886 Gelsenkirchen. email: [email protected]

2

Steffen Lehndorff

"Tertiarisation", work organisation and working-time regulation

Irregular hours encouraged him to imagine that he was master of his own time(E. Annie Proulx, The Shipping News)

In a world in which the deregulation of labour markets is seen as the key toincreasing the international competitiveness of national economies andencouraging employment growth, it would be a bold person indeed who wouldpredict a golden future for working-time regulation. The fact that the prevailingforms of working-time regulation in Europe are, even today, a product of theindustrial age and, in many countries, are displaying clear signs of imminentbreakdown further bolsters this pessimistic view. This being so, it has to beasked whether increasing "tertiarisation" will not ultimately lead to the death of allforms of working-time regulation.

This issue is currently a particularly explosive one in the German debate.Influential commentators have produced statistics to show that Germany islagging behind the USA and several Western European countries in thedevelopment of its service sector and attribute this gap largely to institutionalrigidities. Pointing to countries with such different labour market institutions asDenmark, the Netherlands and the USA, social scientists advising the Germanfederal government have concluded that services require "a different work regimeto that in manufacturing industry" and argued for a shift away from the "de luxeemployment relationship" that still characterises German manufacturing industry"(Streeck/Heinze 1999: 41). Even Baethge (1999: 11), who does not agree withthis conclusion in any way, concurs with the initial finding, namely that the"temporal organisation of work" will change fundamentally because "the generalnature of work in the service sector in the 21st century (will) be completelydifferent from that of work in manufacturing industry in the 20th century. Clearlydefined, relatively permanent and hierarchical corporate and employmentstructures will be replaced by increasingly flexible forms of work and thetemporary, constantly changing organisational forms that characterise networkedand/or virtual companies."

Undoubtedly, the world of work can provide much evidence in support of thisforecast. On the other hand, it is wholly unclear whether and how such trends, ifthey exist, are connected with the growth in services. There are at present toomany gaps in our knowledge of the forces driving the development of new formsof employment and working time in the very diverse world of service activities.

3

For example, it is unclear what contribution the specific characteristics ofactivities in strategic areas of growth in the service sector are making to thestructural change taking place in employment and working time, what interactionsthere are with the labour supply and the mode of labour market regulation ineach national context and how the very different national development paths inthe service sector are affecting employment and working-time forms.1 The onlything that is certain is that the expansion of the service sector has beenaccompanied by a number of very different, indeed contradictory trends in theorganisation of firms, employment and working time, some of which at least marka considerable departure from those that characterised industrial massproduction. Nor can there be any doubt that a number of new and highlydifferentiated trends in the organisation of work and working time can beobserved not only in services but also in manufacturing industry.

Thus it may be very tempting to attribute the decline in the industrial-capitalistmode of the temporal organisation of work, and of the associated forms ofworking-time regulation, to "tertiarisation". However, as Häußermann/Siebel(1995: 12) rightly point out, so long as we have no concept of the "servicesociety" that goes beyond that of a "residual category", then adducing"tertiarisation" as an explanation for the decline of the established forms ofworking-time regulation may amount to little more than an empty formula behindwhich other more convincing but hitherto unrevealed explanations might belurking (Bosch 1998). A more promising approach, it seems to me, is toinvestigate the ways in which manufactured goods and services are produced.

The present paper takes this thought as the starting point for an attempt to shedsome light on the perceptible break-up of established temporal institutions. Thefirst argument we advance is that the regulation of working time, as we still knowit in Europe in its various forms, has from the outset been embedded in thevarious forms of plant-level work organisation and in broader social timearrangements. On the basis of new trends in working-time organisation identifiedin the course of a number of European projects on changes in working time, wewill then show how the mode of working-time organisation that has beenestablished for decades is currently being turned upside down.2 Various modelsof work organisation are now competing with one another, while at the same timethe established time arrangements in the wider society are being eroded. There

1 A research project currently being conducted as part of the European Commission’s TSERprogramme is intended to help fill these gaps. The present paper was written against thebackground of this project (New Forms of Employment and Working Time in the ServiceEconomy/NESY). For further information on NESY see http://iat-info.iatge.de2 The European research projects on changes in working-time organisation that have beencarried out in recent years at the IAT or with the participation of the IAT, and on which the presentpaper is based, focused on a) the link between working time and work organisation in newworking-time systems, drawing on more than 50 case studies in nine countries (Lehndorff 1999a;Lindecke 2000), b) changes in employment and working-time forms in the retail trade (Kirsch etal. 1999; Baret/Lehndorff/Sparks 2000) and c) on the effects of just-in-time production on workingtime in the European automotive component supply industry (Lehndorff 1997).

4

is no sign yet of the emergence of a new, durable form of working-time regulationthat would once again be compatible with established modes of workorganisation and other time arrangements. The task of developing new modelsof time organisation in the workplace and in the wider society has not yet begun.

1 The cycle of working-time regulation

The regulation of employment conditions stands in opposition to the market andto competition and yet at the same time recreates them in a new guise. In itssimplest form, that of a collective agreement between one employer and hisemployees, it eliminates competition among the employees in respect of theemployment conditions laid down in the agreement. Only in this way can twoinitially unequal parties acquire the power to bargain in the internal labourmarket. Disputes about minimum conditions are temporarily suspended.However, this may lead to distortion of the conditions of inter-firm competition.This can be prevented by collective agreements enforceable beyond the limits ofthe individual firm (e.g. at industry level) or by the introduction of statutoryminimum conditions. Both of these instruments offer employees a better chanceof improving their employment conditions (irrespective of their bargaining powerwithin individual companies). From the employers’ point of view, they have theadvantage of removing the contractually defined employment conditions frominter-firm competition. In this way, the competition can be concentrated in otherareas, the example the improvement of production processes or of productquality.

For around 150 years, working time has been a central element in the regulationof employment conditions in Europe. The widespread introduction of the eight-hour day, and later of the 40-hour week, led to the establishment in theindustrialised countries of working-time standards that have certain basiccharacteristics in common. For full-time workers, working time is restricted bycollective agreements and/or statute; work schedules are laid down either incollective or individual agreements and are either fixed or follow regularlyrecurring patterns (shift systems); in manufacturing industry, with a few clearlydefined exceptions, working time is concentrated in the standard working week,i.e. from Monday to Friday, while in some service industries the standard workingweek includes all or part of the weekend. The agreed working time is alsodistributed evenly over the week and the year, with any variations andinterruptions being subject to agreed rules. Any hours worked in excess of theagreed working time or any divergences from the agreed work schedules attractadditional remuneration.

The institutions of working-time regulation vary considerably across Europe.Thus, for example, there is a world of difference between the British tradition of"job control" and the French legislation on working time. Nevertheless, all ofthese different modes of regulation are based on the same basic idea ofcushioning the effect of market fluctuations on working time (and indeed on the

5

employment relationship as a whole). Regulation of the time during which anemployee is at the disposal of his or her employer increases the economic needon the part of the employer to use his employees’ labour as methodically andregularly as possible. If he is unable to manage with the contractually agreedvolume of labour at his disposal, then it is who initially bears the risk, the level ofwhich is assessed in terms of a pre-defined surcharge, namely the payment ofovertime premia. The underutilisation of working time also increases unit labourcosts for the employer. In other words, the regulation of working time can beseen as a curtailment of the link between working time and the market. In thissense, it indirectly endorses the function of the entrepreneur, who interposeshimself between his dependent employees and the market as an agentauthorised to issue directions, and ultimately reflects the function of the firm itself,whose essence lies in the non-market provision of services.3

The evolution of working-time regulation is closely interwoven with the spread ofand structural changes in work in manufacturing industry in the 19th and 20thcenturies. Why has it remained stable right up to the present day?

1.1 The rise to stability

The most important driving forces in the regulation of working time wereundoubtedly the trade unions’ efforts to restrict the length of the working day(together with supportive interventions by the State). The major advances inworking-time regulation were the result of revolutions (as in the periodimmediately following the end of the First World War, when the eight-hour daywas introduced in most European countries) or of radical, state-led reforms (suchas the enshrinement in law of the 40-hour week in the USA by the Rooseveltadministration). "Hour reductions usually were political" (Cross 1997: 7).Nevertheless, employers were always able to adjust to the new regulations put inplace without their assistance or against their will and, over the short or longterm, to use them to their own advantage. Thus the social and politicalupheavals that led to the major turning points in the development of working timewere followed by longer periods characterised by working time arrangementsbased on a symbiotic relationship between working time and work organisation.

One particularly influential arrangement, still in use in many areas, was theorganisation of working time in manufacturing industry within the context of the"scientific management" system. The eight-hour day became the acceptedframework for the rationalisation of interlinked, standardised tasks that werespecified in complete detail. The stopwatch and the time clock, two devicesdedicated to the accurate measurement of time, symbolise both the technical and

3 According to transaction cost theory, a firm becomes necessary at the point at which itsorganisation, in which the management hierarchy takes the place of factor allocation through theprice mechanism, is more efficient than the market (Coase, 1988). Marx had this specific role ofthe firm in mind when he drew attention to the contrast between the organisation of markets,which are driven by competition, and the authoritarian organisation of individual firms.

6

the control aspects of Taylorism, while at the same time representing theworking-time arrangement concealed within the scientific management system:

− The stopwatch is used by employers in order to develop and establishstandards allowing the available time to be utilised as intensively as possible;at the same time, however, it gives workers a (temporary) guarantee that theywill not lose the room for manoeuvre they create for themselves and whichmakes the monotony of the daily grind more bearable or shorter. Ironically,this room for manoeuvre, gained by working more quickly or more efficientlythan at the time the relevant time-and-motion studies were carried out, helpsto prevent the easily damaged production machinery from coming to a halteven more frequently, thereby making Taylorism ultimately viable.

− The time clock, on the other hand, represents the control aspect of Taylorism,which resides largely in the strict division of the conception and execution oftasks and in the strict adherence by workers to the rules drawn up byindustrial engineers. Set up as an instrument of control in order to preventworkers from withholding paid working time, it also delivers into the hands ofworkers a means of either preventing any exceeding of contractual workingtime or earning extra money for any additional hours worked. Check andcountercheck became the core of the various, national-specific industrialrelations systems.

At the same time, the major compromises on working time were embedded inwider social time arrangements. In particular, the campaigns conducted by tradeunionists and politicians in favour of the eight-hour day were closely linked to thenotion of the male breadwinner whose wife was free from the drudgery of earninga living and could devote all her time to household activities and raising children.Cross (1997: 16) cites the classic slogan adopted by the American trade unionsat the end of the 19th century: "eight hours for work, eight hours for rest, eighthours for what we will", which tellingly reflects an exclusively male perspective onworking-time reduction. The eight-hour day became a fundamental element inthe standard employment relationship, in which the sole (or principal) malebreadwinner, supported by the unpaid work done by his wife in the home, wasboth a cultural norm and the bedrock of the entire social security system (and stillis today in some European countries, such as Germany).

For all the diversity of the world of work and of its modes of time organisation,even at the height of Taylorist mass production, the eight-hour day was the basisfor a social time arrangement that initially remained relatively unaffected by theexpansion of the service sector. For a long time, the rhythm of the eight-hourday in manufacturing industry also influenced the work processes in large partsof the service sector and became the main synchroniser of patterns of time usethroughout society. Ultimately, it created space for the development of theconsumer society, which made possible the widespread diffusion of massproduction. It was within these working-time structures that the virtuous circle ofstrong and sustained growth in production, consumption and employment

7

(Appelbaum 1995) developed after the Second World War, a period that has, inretrospect, become known as the "golden age of capitalism".

Thus the established mode of working-time regulation is part of a socialarrangement that has over decades drawn its strength from several sources: theefforts of trade unions to restrict working time, the symbiotic relationship betweenworking time and work organisation, the dominant model of growth and thestandard employment relationship, which contains within it a "gender contract". Ifthe length of the standard working week is taken as a basic indicator of theeffectiveness of working time regulation, the working time profiles of the variousEuropean countries show that the old time arrangement still has some strengthleft in it. Clearly, the normative effect of working-time regulation is not linked tothe varying levels of development of the service sector; only in Great Britain doesthere seem to be an absence of general working-time standards, while inDenmark, where the service sector is as highly developed as in Great Britain,working times are even more standardised than in Germany, where according tothe statistics the service sector lags behind the other two countries (Figure 1).

Figure 1: The distribution of hours normally worked per week in Germany,France, Great Britain and Denmark (dependent employees, 1987-95)

And yet the stability of the mode of working-time regulation reflected in suchworking-time profiles should not be overestimated. With the rise of part-timeworking and flexitime, the last 20 years have seen the establishment of two formsof working time which, it is true, are now regulated in many countries throughcollective agreements or legislation, albeit to a considerably lesser extent thanthe standard full-time form. And yet the widespread diffusion of these forms ofworking time set in motion the gradual relativisation of the basic characteristics ofthe standard working day, to which we now turn.

1.2 The foundations undermined

The factors that produced the existing time arrangement and from which it drewits strength are now going through a period of upheaval. Both the demand andthe supply side of the labour market are experiencing something akin to tectonicshifts, and the effects of the forces at work there are impacting on theorganisation of work and of working time.

The basic reason for these shifts, and the fundamental cause of the changestaking place in the demand for labour, is the change in the growth regime. Thestrong growth of the decades immediately following the Second World War wasbased to a large extent on the increased capacity of the market to absorbstandardised, mass-produced goods. The past few decades, however, haveseen the gradual emergence of a global market, in which large supplierscompete directly with one another, while at the same time long-term averagegrowth rates in the mature economies have declined. Time is becoming an

8

important factor in competition, not only in the provision of goods and services inexisting , increasingly tight markets, but also, and above all, in opening up newmarkets. The boom in the financial economy that has accompanied the reducedgrowth in the goods-based economy (Huffschmid 1999) is further intensifying thiscompetition. Performance in the financial markets is becoming a criterion ofsuccess in the provision of goods and services, with the goods-based economybecoming a function of the financial economy. The combined effect of these twotrends, that is declining growth in product markets and the key role now playedby the financial markets, is a massive increase in competition, with the pressureto reduce costs being transmitted with ever greater intensity to every nook andcranny of the manufacturing and service sectors. This has considerableimplications for the temporal organisation of work. The "unwieldiness" ofindividual working time (Bosch 1996: 22), the result of regulations that seek tocounter the market principle, is increasingly being regarded as fundamentallyincompatible with the competitiveness of individual firms or entire economies.

The foundations of the eight-hour day are, at the same time, being underminedby simultaneous changes in the labour supply (Bosch/Dawkins/Michon 1994).The strong and sustained increase in female labour market participation rates,which has taken place in very different ways and at different rates in the variousEuropean countries, is changing the "social basis" of the established mode ofworking-time regulation, since it has been accompanied by the rapid andwidespread diffusion of part-time working, which is relatively weakly regulated.Furthermore, the expansion of higher education, combined with the declininglevel of financial support for students, has led to the emergence of a large andflexible supply of school and university students who find it increasinglynecessary to take part-time jobs. The share of young people in the EU agedbetween 15 and 29 working part-time in order to help to fund their education ortraining rose in the short period between 1987 and 1995 from 22 to 33% of theirage group (Bosch 2000a).

In many countries, these new entrants to the labour market have to date beeninaccessible to the trade unions or have not been taken seriously as an importanttarget group, quite apart from the organisational problems caused, among otherthings, by the rapid growth in the number of small firms, particularly in the servicesector. As a result, the most important promoters of the established mode ofworking-time regulation have been weakened in some countries, in some casesdramatically so.

All this is impacting on work organisation. The basis of the prevailing mode ofworking-time regulation, namely the symbiotic relationship between working timeand work organisation that became established over decades, is beginning tobreak up. The spread of Taylorism and of the eight-hour day was accompaniedby a process of work intensification that gave a further push to the interactionbetween increased job performance and reduced working time. Working-timereductions, such as the establishment of the 40-hour week in the 1960s and 70s,

9

spurred employers into introducing more efficient systems of work organisationand thereby contributed to a further rise in labour productivity and workintensification, which in turn prompted the trade unions to push for furtherreductions in working time. Once it reaches a certain point, the reduction in thelength of the standard working day below the eight-hour mark requires firms toreorganise working time if a reduction in operating hours is to be avoided(Bosch/Lehndorff 1988). Working-time reductions won by the trade unions, someof them also State-sponsored for reasons of employment policy (as in France),are increasingly becoming the catalyst for a shift in the significance of working-time organisation. While working time has, until now, been a framework for theeffective and efficient deployment of labour, it is now itself becoming a means ofrationalisation and, more generally, an instrument for increasing competitiveness.Company working-time policy can help to reduce personnel costs and increasecapital productivity; at the same time, it can also be used to acquire skilledworkers, to motivate employees and to increase product quality.

These are major social and economic trends that can only be outlined in briefhere. They are bringing about a change in work organisation that ultimatelyposes a challenge to the basic philosophy underlying all forms of working-timeregulation.

1.3 A paradigm shift in work organisation

As already stated, the core objective of working-time regulation is to restrict thelinkage between individual working time and the market principle. The newlyemerging forms of working-time organisation, on the other hand, which will bedescribed in greater detail in the following sections, are intended to restore thatlinkage with as few restrictions as possible. Work and working time are aligneddirectly with the market. As a result of changes in the conditions of competition,firms feel obliged to adjust working times to fluctuations in orders and customerflows in order to help reduce reaction times to the minimum while keeping costsas low as possible. In traditional working-time systems, this objective wasachieved in busy periods by working overtime, for which premia had to be paid,and in slacker periods by labour hoarding; if the slack periods persisted, thenshort-time working, with all its cost implications, was also used. With the newforms of working-time organisation, however, such fluctuations have become anelement in the normal functioning of the working-time system.

There is nothing new in firms seeking to re-establish the link between workingtime and the market. What is new is that they would appear increasingly to besucceeding in so doing. Why is this?

Probably the most important factor in explaining this fundamental shift ofemphasis are the much-debated processes of restructuring currently taking placein the corporate sector, in the inter-firm division of labour and in governancemechanisms (Rubery 1999; on the German debate cf. Moldaschl/Sauer 2000

10

and the references cited therein). Large firms are undergoing a process ofvertical disintegration, in which the individual links in the value-added chain arebeing made independent of each other. These profit centres compete with eachother as well as with other firms. Their competitiveness is increased by cuttingdown on their resources (cutbacks in stocks held as well as in staffing levels). Bydeliberately reducing certainties, these production units are forced into a strategyof permanent rationalisation. The pressure to rationalise applies to both inter-firm and intra-firm relations, "in order to permeate the notion of market orientationinto the very microstructure of each production unit (that is right down to the lastindividual worker)" (Sauer/Döhl 1994). As a result, each individual involved in thecreation of a product has to take account of the entire production process and theconstraints of the market.

Just-in-time production is the paradigm case of this trend. As a trade unionist in aFrench automotive component supply firm trenchantly observed in an interview, "Itis the customer who now confronts the workers, not the boss". This observationdoes not mean that the boss no longer exists. However, he does step to oneside to a certain extent, thereby forcing his employees to confront the marketdirectly in their work. This has implications for the quality of their work, forexample, as well as for the duration, scheduling and organisation of their workingtime. This direct encounter with the customer rather than the boss applies, as weshall see, to employees in extremely diverse activities and status groups rightacross the entire labour market.

The challenge facing working-time regulation could not be greater. If the marketwere at all times and in all places the sole efficient organisational principle (cf.the basic argument in transaction cost theory outlined in note 3), then firms wouldnot be necessary! It is this distinction between the market and the firm that alsogives rise to working-time regulation, and it is precisely this distinction that is nowapparently becoming blurred. Disputes about working time are no longerneutralised for a limited period, as in the traditional mode of working-timeregulation, but are being individualised. Firms are dealing with the demand fortemporal flexibility by devolving responsibility in various ways to the individualemployee. In extreme cases, there is a direct, one-to-one correspondencebetween the firm's time flexibility requirements and the time flexibility demandsmade of individual workers.

This form of individualisation can ultimately undermine any attempt to regulateworking time. Whereas the classic mode of working-time regulation gavebargaining power to both sides in the internal labour market, bringing individualworkers face to face with the market introduces a fundamental shift in thebalance of power. It is this aspect of the individualisation of working-timeorganisation that immediately strikes critical observers.

However, there is another aspect to the individualisation of working-timeorganisation that should not be dismissed as a mere propagandist trick. It holds

11

out the possibility for individuals to adjust their working time more precisely totheir needs and at the same time to develop their abilities and put them to betteruse in their work. In Germany, for example, a recent survey of 19,000 firmsfound that 31% of the firms that had introduced flexible forms of working time haddone so in an attempt to increase employee motivation (in the service sector -excluding distribution - the figure was as high as 48%, in distribution 25% and inmanufacturing industry 27%; DIHT 2000). This offer being made to employeesmay to some extent be deceptive and amount to little more than sweet musicaccompanying a deterioration in employment conditions and a massive shift inthe balance of power to the detriment of dependent employees. Nevertheless,such an interpretation may well not give an accurate picture of the situation. Ifwe are not to succumb to the risk of underestimating the possible effectivenessof the individualisation of working-time organisation and the implicit challenge itpresents to the established institutions of working-time regulation, it is advisable,while maintaining the necessary critical distance, to take seriously the opportunityit holds out to individuals without ignoring the shift in the balance of poweralready alluded to.

For the real threat the new forms of working-time organisation pose for theestablished mode of working-time regulation is that they not only offer firmsbetter opportunities to undermine the regulatory institutions but also provideemployees with strong encouragement to take the initiative in circumventingthese same institutions. It would be quite wrong to confuse these opportunitieswith reality, which in most EU member states, as indicated in Figure 1, is stillshaped by the institutions associated with the standard employment relationship,which include the regulation of working time through collective agreements orlegislation. Nevertheless, the dual tendency towards undermining andcircumventing is already manifesting itself in many ways in standard employmentrelationships, while on the "upper" and "lower" margins of the labour market it isreflected in the actual disintegration of effective working-time regulation.4 We willenlarge on this idea in the next section, taking the most important characteristicsof the new forms of working-time organisation as a starting point.

2 New forms of working-time organisation

4 Unfortunately, the German industrial sociology and labour market research suffers from adivision of labour between authors who - to overstate the case somewhat - focus either on the"worker entrepreneur" at the upper end of the labour market or the "marginal part-time employee"at the lower end. As a result, the various aspects of market orientation are sometimes notconsidered in context, and the still-dominant standard employment relationship can be completelylost from view. As a result, it is likely that either the spread of precarious employment or theblurring of the boundaries between dependent employment and self-employment will beinterpreted one-sidedly as heralding the future of work. Cf., by way of example, the article byVoß/Pongratz (1998), which has had an important influence on the German debate, and, for acritical response, Bosch (2000c) and Flecker (2000).

12

It is no accident that, to date, there have been virtually no meaningful andcomparable quantitative findings on the changes in working-time organisationand their effects on working-time realities. It is in the nature of these changesthat they are difficult to measure. However, we know from the study of working-time changes at plant or establishment level (cf. note 2) that the new forms ofworking-time organisation that are being developed in many European countriesshare some astonishingly similar characteristics. True, there are considerabledifferences, some of them country-specific, that are attributable to the variousnational industrial relations systems, among other things, and which make it clearthat there are still opportunities for the contractual or statutory regulation of newforms of working-time organisation. However, if we are to be able to recognisethe implicit challenge to the regulation of working time contained within thesenew forms of working time, then we have to identify the main trends in the newforms of working time that firms are seeking to put in place. Some of theircharacteristics differ radically from the forms of working-time organisation thathave prevailed to date. These characteristics do not generally occur together;indeed, it is precisely the multifarious nature of the models and the diversity oflinks between the various elements listed here that characterises the new formsof working time:

− the length of daily working time fluctuates or is differentiated for the variousgroups within the workforce;

− the week is de facto or even explicitly no longer the reference point fordefining working time, which may be distributed irregularly over the year(which is frequently the new reference point) or over a period of severalyears;

− as a result, the contractual working-time standards that still exist becomemere arithmetical values, so that the exceeding of a certain daily or weeklyworking time no longer attracts additional payments, or only under certainvery restrictive conditions;

− the same applies to the expansion of working time into hitherto unusual("unsocial") times, such as the night or the weekend, which are expresslydesignated part of standard working time - the blurring or levelling of thedifference between "social" and "unsocial" hours and the associated changein social norms (or the reflection of such changes) is one of the mostimportant characteristics of many new working-time systems;

− agreed working-time patterns are not fixed but reversible;− working time is becoming "informal": in some cases, no attempt at all is made

to establish even temporary working-time patterns;− working-time patterns that have hitherto been prevalent among white-collar

workers (e.g. flexitime) are now being introduced into productiondepartments, and vice versa (e.g. shift work);

− the full-time standard is being abandoned as a reference point, or is beingrelativised; as a result, employment contracts with a range of differing workingtimes are being concluded;

13

− not only different working times but also different employment forms can becombined with each other, such as full-time and part-time, agency work ortelework.

Of course, there have always been areas in which one or other of the working-time characteristics listed here could be found. However, they were exceptions,confined to particular industries or groups of occupations. This limitation nolonger applies to the working-time systems under investigation here; indeed, it isprecisely the lack of limitation that is the key characteristic of the new forms ofworking time. The exception is gradually becoming the rule.

Closer examination of the new working-time models shows that, with the aid of asimple typology, it is possible to identify two main trends in the changes inworking-time organisation. In very many cases, they are combined with eachother:

− the extension of operating and opening hours,− and the flexibilisation of working time and operating hours. In the case of

flexibilisation, two different basic patterns can again be identified, thedifference between them being that, in the one case, time flexibility dependsmore on numerical flexibility while, in the other, it is achieved largely throughfunctional flexibility.

We now turn to these main trends in the reorganisation of working time, which inreality manifest themselves in a variety of hybrid forms.

2.1 The extension of operating and opening hours

For some decades now, long opening and operating hours, including all or part ofthe night or weekend, have been an established fact in certain areas of themanufacturing and service sectors. Working as a nurse or in the iron and steelindustry was and still is in most cases synonymous with alternating shifts andnight and weekend work. Today, however, work at "unsocial hours" isincreasingly less confined to particular occupational groups. The provision ofservices outside standard opening and office hours has become a key factor incompetition in manufacturing and services alike. In manufacturing industry,account also has to be taken of the enormous increase in the investmentrequired for modern plant and machinery, so that extending machine operatingtimes is the only way of producing goods at competitive unit costs. Theextension of regular working times for many employees into the late evening andweekend is not adequately captured in the statistics, because at the same timesome of the occupational groups that have traditionally worked nights andweekend on a regular basis (e.g. steelworkers) are declining in importance.

The continuing flexibilisation of working times and operating hours is taking awide variety of different forms.

14

2.2 The flexibilisation of working times and operating hours

Flexibilisation is of equal importance in manufacturing and services. A traditionalcharacteristic of many areas of the service sector is the particular time regime towhich they are subject: services must be provided at the precise moment atwhich they are purchased. For this reason, firms operating in those areassubject to this time regime must ensure that manning levels are adjusted to thesometimes sharp fluctuations in customer flows. It is true that, by rationalisingservices, firms are able to shield certain sections of the service delivery chainfrom these fluctuations by producing them in advance so that they can be "putinto storage". In manufacturing industry, however, a contrary process is takingplace: the conventional mass production of standardised goods to be held instock is being replaced by the production of "variably standardised" or"individualised" mass-produced items manufactured on a "modular" or "sectional"basis. The various parts of each product have to be produced on a "just-in-time"basis in order that they can be made available to customers at the lowestpossible cost. This "customising" of product and service content and of thetiming of the production process is a feature common to manufacturing industryand many areas of the service sector. It is very much in the interests of firms inboth sectors to reduce the level of capital committed and to avoid paid workingtime that is not directly productive. The results are more flexible labourdeployment and more flexible working times, whether opening and operatinghours are fixed or fluctuating.

Recent years have seen the widespread introduction of flexible systems ofworking-time organisation. In Germany, for example, the company surveyalready cited (DIHT 2000) found that only 37% of firms made no use at all offlexible forms of working time (Table 1). The same survey found that 65% offirms had made the transition to more flexible systems of working-timeorganisation only since 1997. In a representative survey of German employees,37% of those surveyed at the end of the decade stated that they were working insystems with working-time accounts (Groß/Munz 1999).

Table 1: The use of flexible working-time forms in German firms

As already mentioned, however, the term "flexible working-time forms" concealsa number of very different approaches, depending on whether the required timeflexibility is achieved more through numerical or through functional flexibility. Inreality, they frequently occur in conjunction with each other; nevertheless, the"design characteristics" of the relevant system of working-time organisation canbe clearly distinguished from each other.

The most obvious characteristic of the first named variant is the variation in thenumber of workers deployed over time - whether in the course of a day, a weekor a year. Employers adopting such systems may have recourse to the external

15

labour market in order to recruit workers on fixed-term contracts or temporaryagency workers. However, numerical flexibility depends increasingly on theinternal labour market as well, that is on the permanent workforce. In this case,part-time workers in particular are deployed according to need at fixed orchanging times of the day or week. In manufacturing, this form of flexibility hasto date relied largely on the so-called "peripheral workforce" (employees on fixed-term contracts or temporary agency workers; in the service sector, employershave relied largely on part-timers, some of them working very few hours perweek, and to a lesser extent on seasonal workers. The basic principle is thesame, however: to vary the volume of labour by changing the number of workersdeployed.

Promoters of this form of working-time organisation include call centres (Bittneret al. 2000) and large retail outlets (Baret/Lehndorff/Sparks 2000; cf. alsoDorothea Voss-Dahm’s paper to be presented at the conference). Through theuse of methods that are essentially a further development of Taylorist time-and-motion studies, every effort is made to ascertain as precisely as possible thestaffing levels required at each point of the day, week and year. The primaryobjective is at no point to have either too many or too few employees presentwho have to be paid.

A distinction has to be made between such systems and those in which thevolume of labour is adjusted by varying employees' working time. As inconventional flexitime systems, the duration and scheduling of individual workingtime changes over time. There are three main differences between the newsystems and conventional flexitime systems. Firstly, the initiative for varyingworking time no longer comes solely or primarily from employees, sinceoperational considerations are now the main factor that has to be taken intoaccount. Secondly, the definition of standard working time is frequently extendedto include evenings and weekends. In this way, employers can reduce orcompletely eliminate paid overtime, since working time that once attractedpremia has been redefined as standard working time. Thirdly, the period withinwhich variable working times have to be averaged out to the contractual workingtime may be one or more years. In some cases, no such equalisation period islaid down at all.

Variable working-time systems are currently experiencing a boom inmanufacturing and services in Germany. The change in the engineeringindustry, which by 1995 had completed the phased introduction of the 35-hourweek, has been relatively well researched. Within the space of just a few years,almost one third of establishments with a work council concluded agreementsproviding for the possible adjustment of weekly working time to fluctuations inworkloads (Herrmann et al. 1999: 144). It is true that, up to now, only 16% ofemployees in the engineering industry are regularly affected by fluctuations inworking time; however, in those establishments in which a company agreement

16

on this matter has been concluded, almost 55% of the workforce work variablehours (ibid. 147).

Will now examine these two variants in greater detail and consider their possibleeffects on the system of working-time regulation, taking the German case as anexample.

3 Work organisation and working-time regulation

Most firms do not necessarily combine the reorganisation of working time with astrategy for reforming their system of work organisation. This is evident from thefact that most firms currently give a short-term reduction in labour costs,particularly by cutting down on overtime premia, as their main reason forintroducing flexible working-time systems (this was the main objective to beachieved by reorganising working time for 60% of the German companiessurveyed; DIHT 2000). However, this should not blind us to the fact that thevariation of working times follows a completely different internal logic from thevariation of manning levels over the course of time, even if management in manycompanies is not always fully aware of the implications of their own actions interms of work organisation and strategy.

Behind flexible working times lie concealed new paradigms of work organisation.The main difference between them is whether management tasks are devolvedto employees and the increase in time flexibility is achieved primarily throughpassive or active employee involvement (Figure 2).5

− In one paradigm, time flexibility is achieved primarily through numericalflexibility. It requires work to be divided into simple constituent elements, sothat the workers responsible for performing the resultant standardised taskscan be replaced at any time at short notice. In this system of workorganisation, time flexibility depends essentially on the availability of workersat the time at which they are required by the firm. For this reason, we call thisvariant "passive flexibility".

− In the other paradigm, time flexibility is achieved primarily through functionalflexibility. Firms do not wish or are not in a position to dispense with theabilities and experience of a certain group within the core workforce. Fromthis starting point, it is but a short step to the conclusion that responsibility forthe planning of working time should be delegated to employees, at least inpart. It is this delegation of responsibility to employees, a decision that doesnot necessarily always have to be taken immediately or to be readily apparentto all the actors, that justifies the term "active flexibility".

Figure 2: New forms of working-time organisation

5 The twin concepts of passive and active flexibility have been developed in greater detailelsewhere (Lehndorff 1999b) by means of a critical comparison with Atkinson’s (1984) well-knownflexibility model.

17

For all their differences, these two methods of organising time flexibility have acommon root. They are based on the greater individualisation of working-timeorganisation that arises out of the increased market orientation of work. They arenot specific to either the service or manufacturing sector, but are emergingacross the boundaries between the two sectors because, to exaggerate for thepurposes of simplification, they are linked, on the one hand, to the increasedservice orientation of work in manufacturing and, on the other, to theindustrialisation of work in services. This statement will be examined in greaterdetail below, since it is crucial to the main theme of this paper. In both theircommon core and their different variants, market-oriented forms of working-timeorganisation pose a challenge to the regulation of working time; the mechanismis fundamentally similar in both cases, but the attack comes from two completelydifferent sides.

3.1 The challenge to working-time regulation from passive flexibility

In the "passive flexibility" variant, employees’ work schedules are drawn up andassigned by management. In organisations that use this variant, work is typicallydivided up into its simple constituent elements. Functional differentiation isconsequently very high. Workers have to be as interchangeable as possible, sothat they can be deployed according to need.

In essence, passive flexibility is in many respects synonymous with thefragmentation of work:

− fragmentation of the work process through its division into specialised,standardised individual activities (high functional differentiation),

− fragmentation of employment through the use of fixed-term employmentcontracts or of contracts offering only a few hours’ work per week,

− fragmentation of working time through short or variable work schedules.

In the service sector, the standardisation and dividing up of activities hasacquired great significance, and is being applied increasingly to classic advisoryservices. This can be seen as a trend towards "service-sector Taylorism" or"neo-Taylorism" (Rubery 1999, Gadrey 2000). As in the mode of workorganisation that characterised industrial mass production, the conception andexecution of tasks are separated and work is divided into its simplest constituentelements and standardised; what is new is that the direct customer contact suchservices involve has led to the replacement of "simple physical work" with "simplecommunication work" (Bosch 2000a). True, employees must be present aspersonalities or individuals, but they have to adhere to tightly defined standardsgoverning the communicational and emotional aspects of their work.

What is particularly important here from the point of view of working-timeregulation is that, unlike classic Taylorism, the standardisation of tasks is not

18

accompanied by the standardisation of working times. Quite the opposite! Thestandardisation of tasks provides the basis for the undermining of working-timestandards.

The relatively low level of regulation governing part-time work, and particularlymarginal part-time jobs offering only a few hours’ work per week, plays a key rolein the undermining of working-time standards. In the German retail trade, forexample, the trade unions’ attempts to bring the regulation of part-time workcloser to that of full-time work through collective agreements have so far provedunsuccessful (Kirsch et al. 1999). One significant "blank area" in the regulatoryframework governing part-time work is the risk of working times that cannot beplanned in advance. Among full-time workers in the German retail trade, 11.1%claim that the duration and scheduling of their working time depends on theiremployer’s operational requirements; among part-timers, the share is 28.8%(Bauer et al. 1998). In most cases, workers are given very little notice of theirwork schedules, and are frequently notified of them just a few days in advance.The fact that the retail trade is the leader in the use of "flexible weekly workingtimes", as Table 1 shows, is essentially attributable to this practice.6

However, the spread of passive flexibility cannot be attributed solely to thestructure of the demand for labour from retail firms, but also to the structure ofthe labour supply. In addition to the young people who are interested in part-timejobs as they continue their school or university education, the major influx ofwomen into the labour market is of fundamental importance. They take part-timejobs (or are forced to do so) because they continue to bear the mainresponsibility for children and the provision of childcare facilities is inadequateand German schools still finish in the early afternoon. It is hardly a matter ofdispute that the conventional division of roles between the sexes is still theprevailing social norm. Moreover, as in several other European countries, theGerman taxation and social security systems reward so-called marginal part-timejobs offering very few hours’ work per week (Dingeldey 1999). Against thisbackground, retail companies in Germany, for example, have to dateexperienced relatively little difficulty in meeting their need for part-timers able towork irregular hours at short notice. As a result, working-time regulation on thelower margin of the labour market is being both undermined and circumvented.

6 As our case studies in the retail trade show, such labour management practices are not withouttheir problems for firms as well. The fragmentation of employment and working times can giverise to hidden costs, as a result of high labour turnover or a reduction in service quality. For thisreason, there is a minority of firms that discover that it is in their interest not to have part-timersworking excessively short hours, to allow individuals to plan their working times and, moregenerally, to offer stable employment relationships. Thus it would be misleading to regardpassive flexibility as an inevitable consequence of the rationalisation of low-skill service activities.Rather, there is some scope for management to make its own decisions on personnel policy, inclose conjunction with its product strategy, i.e. the firm’s service concept. Sooner or later, anemphasis on quality will lead firms away from a strategy of passive flexibility.

19

A comparable set of problems, albeit in a completely different form, can beobserved on the upper margin of the labour market.

3.2 The challenge to working-time regulation from active flexibility

The internal logic of active flexibility works in such a way as to encourage and putto use workers’ ability to anticipate changes in work requirements and to makethe necessary adjustments relatively independently. Organisational approachesof this kind are most likely to be found in a work environment in which employees’areas of responsibility are more broadly defined. They require firms to abandonthe strategy of fragmenting the volume of work into all too small units ofemployment and working time and to rely instead on stable employment. Thebasic philosophy behind this mode of work organisation is the link between aclear quality orientation, employee commitment and customer focus.

In this context, the purpose of variable working-time systems is to producetemporal flexibility by relying, to a certain extent at least, on employees’ ownability to vary the length and scheduling of their own working times. Thuschanges to working time are not decreed by management but come about withthe active cooperation of the workforce, or are even made by employeesthemselves acting on their own initiative. They are, therefore, one element in aparticipatory mode of work organisation (EPOC Research Group 1997). In manycompanies in which management has adopted this paradigm and devolveddecision-making powers to groups of employees, work scheduling is an importantarea of responsibility for the groups (Table 2). These firms have adopted thisstrategy in the expectation that employees’ job satisfaction will increase if theyare given the opportunity to strike a better balance between the their ownindividual working time preferences and the firm’s operational requirements.

Table 2: The delegation of decision-making to groups of employees

In simpler production and service activities, employee involvement in workscheduling is in many cases fairly restricted, with management initially calculatingmanpower requirements and employees then putting down their own individualworking times or agreeing them with their colleagues (in the retail trade we usethe term "activation of passive flexibility" to denote such an approach). In areaswith higher skill requirements, however, attempts have been made in somecases to go further, which employees being given total responsibility for workscheduling. If such an approach is to be successful, then the processing oforders must be decentralised and, if possible, delegated to teams constituted asprofit centres. In some cases, management control of the time regime iseliminated and replaced by management by objectives. From this point, it is buta short step to a system of work organisation in which it is left up to theemployees to decide the timeframe within which the agreed objective is to beachieved. Thus the board of VW, for example, recently proposed that theprinciple of "fixed performance - fixed wage - no fixed working time" should even

20

be applied to the mass production of cars, and declared that this would be acondition for further major investment in Germany (IG Metall Bezirk Hannover2000).

Thus in delegating responsibility for work scheduling to employees, it is entirelyconceivable that the recording of working time could be eliminated altogether. Atthis point, working time will be completely "informalised" and its boundaries fluid.In Germany, such forms of working-time organisation are currently gainingground under the title "working time on trust".

Of course, we are not actually dealing with trust here. In fact, what firms thathave adopted "trust-based" forms of working-time organisation are really doing ispursuing the internal logic of the market orientation of work and working time to aparticularly far-reaching conclusion. Risk and responsibility for the final productis transferred to teams and individual employees who have to prove themselvesto customers inside and outside the firm. The employer no longer managesdirectly by decree but indirectly by establishing the conditions under whichemployees or teams operate in the market. Individual employees and theirteams are required to behave as if they were self-employed. To quote Peters(1997), whose line of argument I am following here, they become "the dependentself-employed".

When dependent employees behave as if they were self-employed, their wholeattitude to working-time regulation can change fundamentally. They begin toadopt an outlook that is not unknown to academic researchers. By eliminatingsoul-destroying routine and working to order, by making the substantive andorganisational challenges harder, individuals really can be given greateropportunities to develop their own abilities and strengthen their self-confidence.It can then seem reasonable to view working-time standards as a hindrancerather than protection.

For this reason, we cannot exclude the possibility that the diffusion of activeflexibility, i.e. a combination of indirect management and variable working times,will set in train a process leading to the disintegration of working-time standards.It is very difficult to prove or disprove this suspicion, particularly because the"informalisation" of working time undermines all efforts to measure it.Nevertheless, by drawing on some empirical findings on changes in working timein Germany, a country where working time is relatively tightly regulated, we candraw attention to a few symptoms that show that our suspicion should at least betaken seriously.

An initial, albeit general clue is provided by the increase in the share of full-timeemployees working long hours (Table 3). In this respect, Germany is merelyreflecting a trend that can be observed in most EU member states. The moststriking fact is that it is mainly men who are working long hours.

21

Table 3: Share of full-time employees who normally work 46 hours or more perweek, as percentage of all full-time employees (1994, 1997)

Let us look in greater detail at one group of employees who work notoriously longhours, namely high-level white-collar workers, who account for more than onequarter of all white-collar workers in Germany. As the socio-economic panel datashow, this occupational group was actually working even longer hours at the endof the 1990s, despite reductions in contractual working time, than at the timewhen the whole process of reducing the 40-hour week began (Figure 3). Thusthe change in the working-time standard has not had a perceptible effect on thehours worked by this category of employees.

Figure 3: Average agreed and actual weekly working times for white-collarworkers in high-level jobs with managerial responsibilities in Western Germany

Now there is a statistical link between long working times and working-timefluctuations (although it does not permit any conclusions to be drawn on causaleffects in one or the other direction). As a survey conducted by the IAT shows(Wagner 2000), almost 17% of all dependent employees stated in 1998 that thelength of their weekly working time depended heavily on the daily or weeklyworkload. This proportion rises with income and qualification. Full-timeemployees whose working times vary considerably with workload tend to worklonger than average hours (Table 4). At the same time, a higher than averageshare of these employees state that they are able to schedule their own workingtime, either independently or in consultation with their colleagues. Thus theirincreased time autonomy is accompanied by greater pressure to adjust their owntime to the requirements of the company - a clear symptom of what we call activeflexibility.

Table 4: Average length of and variation in actual weekly working times(dependent employees, figures in hours)

Since there are no comparable figures on working-time variations from the past,it is not possible to extrapolate any trends from these data. However, theproblems likely to arise in future can be identified by considering how thefundamental elements of flexible working-time systems are shaped in companyagreements. Several years ago, we investigated company agreements onvariable working times in various industries (Lindecke/Lehndorff 1997). Around40% of these agreements made no provision for dealing with employees’ timecredits deposited on their working-time accounts after the end of the equalisationperiod. In a further third of the agreements, any such credits simply lapsed, and10% made provision for employees to be compensated. When working times arevariable, there is clearly a greater possibility of them being extended, covertly inthe first instance, because some of the hours worked become to some extentinvisible, hidden in a grey area of informal agreements between individualemployees and their supervisors (or individual decisions by employees or

22

decisions taken within teams). This possibility is all the more likely to becomeprobability the more job security depends on the success of individual employeesor teams in winning out over internal and external competitors.

These symptoms do not suggest that variable working-time systems would befundamentally incompatible with the maintenance of working-time standards andan effective system of working-time regulation. However, they do indicate thatthe flexibilisation and self-management of working time may well be paving theway for the gradual spread of specific characteristics of the working-time realityof high-level white-collar workers to other categories of employees.

3.3 Marginal phenomena or harbingers of the social polarisation of workingtime?

Part-time checkout operators in supermarkets with frequently changing workschedules and software engineers working longer than average hours that varyconsiderably with workload are examples of groups of workers whose working-time reality is even today influenced to only a limited extent - if at all - by working-time regulations. Both groups confront the market on an individual basis, andtheir working times are determined to a large extent by market fluctuations.

It may be that the trends that can be observed among these groups ofemployees will remain phenomena confined to the lower and upper margins ofthe labour market. And yet the changes in working time these groups haveexperienced are associated with two models of work organisation that are bothbecoming more widely diffused. Evidence of this, which should be interpretedwith all due caution, is to be found in a representative survey of workorganisation structures in Germany conducted by the IAT. At one extreme of theclusters that emerge from this survey is heteronomous individual work, while atthe other are cooperative activities involving a high degree of participation.Between 1993 and 1998, the number of employees at both extremes increased(in the first case from 26.6 to 28% and in the second from 9.1 to 11.9%;Nordhause-Janz/Pekruhl 2000: 37). This gradual shift supports the view that thetwo variants of flexibility described here will in future affect more categories ofemployees.

If this assessment is a realistic one, then the symptoms outlined may beinterpreted as indicating the risk of a creeping social polarisation of working timethat in Europe has hitherto been confined to Great Britain. The evolution ofworking time in Great Britain, in which industry-wide or national collectiveagreements have played virtually no role (Rubery 1998), has long beencharacterised by a combination of particularly long working times, especiallyamong men, and very short working times, especially among women (cf. Figure1). "Underworking" at one extreme is the precondition for "overworking" at theother - and vice versa. If reproductive work and the distribution of incomebetween households is also taken into account (Harvey 1999), it becomes clear

23

that the passive flexibility at one extreme is a function of the active flexibility atthe other. The two poles are linked to each other via a "modernised" genderdivision of labour: "Self-managed time may only reinforce the status quo, it maylead women to adjust wage and domestic worktime to minimise disruptions intheir "traditional" domestic and family obligations rather than create symmetrybetween men’s and women’s roles" (Cross 1993: 211).

This contrasts with development paths in other European countries, in which thedistribution of working time has remained fundamentally the same and men’s andwomen’s working times are gradually converging (Lehndorff 1999c). Theclearest example is Denmark, where full-time employment among women isrising while at the same time the standard weekly working time is falling (cf.Figure 1). The reform of working-time regulation may play an important role insettling the decision between these two alternative development paths, the"British" and the "Danish" paths. We now turn, finally, to the possible implicationsof such a reform, which will of course take completely different institutional formsdepending on national conditions.

4 The search for new models of working-time regulation

As we stated at the outset, the symbiotic relationship between working time andwork organisation, the interaction of corporate hierarchies and the collectivenegotiation of compromises between conflicting interests, has continued to be acentral pillar of the established mode of working-time regulation. However, aswork becomes increasingly market-oriented and the organisation of working timemore individualised, the balance of power that has prevailed to date is now beingundermined; working-time standards that are intended to have a protective effectare being circumvented. True, new symbiotic relationships between working timeand work organisation are emerging in the passive and, particularly, activevariants of flexible working-time organisation. However, they are based on afundamental imbalance of power, and it is more likely that they will lead merely tothe establishment of a more or less temporary time arrangement in the workplacerather than providing the basis for a sustainable and lasting social timearrangement.

This supposition is clearly well founded in the case of passive flexibility. Here,non-permanent arrangements are being established between, on the one hand,young people seeking nothing more than temporary jobs or women confined tothe role of secondary earner and, on the other hand, firms whose product orservice quality is such that they can dispense with committed, well-qualifiedworkers. However, even in the case of active flexibility, it is questionablewhether the time arrangements can be sustained as long as they go hand inhand with a trend towards longer working times and encourage a furtherpolarisation of working times, earnings and life opportunities.

24

Thus in what follows, it will be argued that a change of trend towards a moresustainable mode of working-time regulation is unlikely unless new working-timestandards can be securely entrenched. Once again, the foundations for suchstandards are to be sought both in work-organisation systems in business andindustry and in the gender division of labour in the wider society. There are goodreasons to suppose that social/political ideals, such as equality of status for menand women in the labour market and a refusal to countenance the furtherpolarisation of working time and earnings, will become an increasingly importantpart of the process.

4.1 A new time arrangement (1): women’s employment

New, sustainable time arrangements require the construction of models toreplace those that, explicitly or implicitly, underpin the established mode ofworking-time regulation. This applies particularly to the social division of labourbetween the sexes. The continuing influx of women into labour market, includingthose who are married or living with partners and have children, is a basic socialfact. The question is whether, and in what direction, this influx is beingchannelled. As European comparisons of the structure of the labour supply andpart-time work suggest (Rubery et al. 1998), traditional female attitudes towardspaid work have their roots in the social norms governing family life and thegender division of labour, while at the same time being supported or hindered bysocial institutions.

The social institutions through which this channelling largely takes place inGermany, for example, are only very indirectly connected with working-timeregulation. The institutions principally involved are the taxation and socialsecurity system, the childcare system, the primary education system and thearrangements for dealing with people in need of care. Their combined effect onwomen’s attitude to paid work is to encourage them to seek part-timeemployment, thereby upholding the traditional division of labour between thesexes, albeit in a modernised form. Thus women with children who wish to workfull-time, or are obliged to do so, have hurdles to overcome and sacrifices tomake (on the effect of the taxation and social security systems, seekAnxo/Flood/Rubery 1999, Dingeldey 1999).

Using the example of the retail trade, we have been able to show that firms incountries such as Germany or Great Britain seeking to increase flexibility throughthe fragmentation of employment and working time are able to draw on a largepool of labour looking for jobs offering short working hours and limitedresponsibility. In Western Germany, three quarters of female part-timers in theretail trade stated that they had chosen to work part-time, while 43% of thosewho stated a preference for part-time work said they required time to look aftertheir children (Gewerkschaft HBV 1995). However, the increasing uncertainty asto the scheduling of their working time is confronting many of these women with adilemma: contrary to their intention of achieving a better balance between paid

25

work and family responsibilities by working part-time, such a balance is actuallyproving very difficult to achieve in everyday life. As a result, they deliberatelykeep their labour supply low or even reduce it. Instead of being integrated intothe labour market, they remain confined to a lower segment of fragmented, low-paid work with low skill demands and few opportunities for development.Particularly in countries or regions with high unemployment, they will frequentlyfind no alternative to such work.

Thus the institutions channelling the female labour supply are helping to ensurethat many women take up jobs outside the reach of any system of working-timeregulation. As a result, they lack the power to push through the new,institutionalised minimum conditions they require to protect themselves againstthe part-time dilemma. Because of the lack of social support, even the existingattempts at regulation frequently remain ineffective in practice, as experience inthe German retail trade shows.

Support for this view can be found in a comparison of part-time rates in the retailtrade in various European countries (Table 5). Part-time rates in the Europeancountries included in this comparison range from 56% in Great Britain to 33% inSweden, although in Sweden as well the majority of retail employees are women.

Table 5: Share of women and part-timers in total dependent employment in theretail trade

Two distinct groups of countries emerge from this comparison. The group inwhich part-time rates are lower than 40% (France and the three Scandinaviancountries) is characterised by an established tradition of labour force participationamong women with partners and children, a pattern of activity that is supportedby, among other things, a highly developed childcare infrastructure. In thesecountries, those firms seeking to rely on passive flexibility clearly have to battleagainst established social norms. It seems reasonable to assume, therefore, thatconditions in these countries will be more favourable to the effective regulation ofpart-time work; it will be more difficult to undermine any regulatory system thatmight be put in place, and there will be fewer employees seeking to circumventthe rules.

If this assumption is correct, there will be little real chance of establishing a newsystem of working-time regulation covering shorter working times unless equalityof status for men’s and women’s work becomes the social norm and is supportedby institutional reforms (childcare, tax and social security system, among otherthings). In this connection, it should be remembered that just such a policy ofreform is a typical feature of those countries in which the expansion of theservice sector has not been accompanied by increasing social inequality(Häußermann/Siebel 1995, Bosch 2000b). This would suggest that it might bepossible to set in train a virtuous circle in which increasing female labour marketparticipation makes working time more susceptible to regulation.

26

Such reforms would improve the conditions for the regulation of working time;however, the regulation of working time, in its varying national forms, would itselfhave to be reorganised appropriately. It must be made easier for men andwomen alike to vary their individual working times over the life course in orderthat they can better adapt their work time to the different demands andrequirements of the various phases of the life cycle.

Providing an institutional underpinning for increasing female participation in thelabour market would also have an important "side effect": "The entry of womeninto the labour market will reduce availability for work among certain groups ofmen" (Bosch 2000c: 258). This effect can already be seen in some of thecountries, principally in northern Europe, in which women with partners andchildren have long been integrated into the labour market and where manywomen are now working full-time or increasing their working hours. Suchcircumstances could well give rise to a trend that would counter the long hoursnormally worked by men.7 One indicator of this is the working-time preferences ofmen with partners (Table 6). The classic male breadwinner model is on thedecline throughout Europe. Two different trends are emerging out of this decline.In those countries in which women are still not fully integrated into the labourmarket, men prefer the modernised form of the single breadwinner model inwhich the man works full-time and the woman part-time. However, in thosecountries in which women are firmly established in the labour market, men tendto prefer a reduction in working time for both partners, with both men and womenworking part-time. A similar basic trend can be seen in women’s working-timepreferences (Bielenski/Hartmann 1999: 19).

Table 6: The sharing of paid work and working time among men and women -present situation and preferences by region (%)

Thus the effect of giving equal status to men’s and women’s employment mightbe twofold. On the one hand, it would provide a social foundation for efforts toregulate part-time work and help to combat the confinement of many women to asecondary earner segment of the labour market. This would improve mobilityand flexibility in the labour market. At the same time, it would help to counter therisk of an increase in men’s working time brought about by the introduction ofactive flexibility.

4.2 A new time arrangement (2): work organisation

7 However, this only applies if polarisation of the income distribution can be avoided. In the USA,where both skill and income within sectors and industries are significantly more broadly dispersedthan in Germany, the growing number of low earners are forced to work longer and longer hours,while the increasing wealth at the top of the earnings distribution creates the correspondingdemand for labour. It is leading to an increase in average individual working time. Cf.Freeman/Schettkat (2000).

27

The basic challenge to future working-time regulation posed by active flexibility isthat the underlying model of work organisation relies on harnessing employees’aspirations for autonomy to serve the interests of the firm. Nobody, least of allthose who continue to view working-time regulation as necessary, will beinterested in suppressing creative potential and yearning to return to the good olddays of Taylorism. Quite the opposite. Thus we have to consider whetherworking-time regulation can be further developed in such a way as to helpemployees to take the promises held out by the new forms of management andorganisation at face value and to use them to serve their own interests.

Skills and participation might provide suitable starting points for such an attemptto make working-time regulation once again an integral part of the workorganisation regime.

Skills play a key role in active flexibility. The more manufacturing and servicesbecome knowledge-based, the more likely it is that firms will rely on activeflexibility (OECD 1999: 197). At the same time, however, firms becomeincreasingly concerned to extend working times. The greater the value of a firm’s"intellectual plant" is, the greater the pressure will be to extend "utilisation times",just as with machinery. However, the comparison is a poor one because we aretalking about human individuals and not machines: human intelligence andcreativity are like "renewable resources". There has to be continuous investmentin them and they also have to be given time to reproduce if their value to thecompany, to say nothing of their value to the individuals involved, is to besustained.

In fact there are firms that recognise this distinction. The OECD (1999: 210),which has picked over the available English-language literature on the new formsof work organisation in order to glean information on their effects on the labourmarket, did not, it is true, find many examples that could be interpretedunambiguously, but was able to state nevertheless that, "The most robustrelationship discovered was that workplaces with flexible practices tend to trainmore than those that do not have them". However, it does not really seemrealistic to expect the majority of firms to invest repeatedly in upgrading theiremployees’ skills, and to accept the consequent restrictions on the use they canmake of those workers, simply because it is the right thing to do in a competitiveenvironment in which quality is a key factor. The limitations of a purely firm-based approach to the search for compromises on new time arrangements areself-evident. Clearly, investment in training and further training must be seen asa task for the public authorities. Only then will there be a chance of setting intrain a virtuous circle in which both the supply of and demand for skilled labourincreases (Bosch 1999 : 140).

The greater the supply of skilled labour, the better the chances of establishing amode of work organisation in which skilled work is not concentrated in a smallgroup of specialists but distributed much more widely throughout the workforce.

28

In other words, the expansion of training may help to encourage forms of workorganisation that do not rely so heavily on readily interchangeable workers buttend to make greater use of workers able to perform more broadly defined anddemanding tasks and therefore also capable of covering for each other. In thisway, the self-propelling dynamic of longer working hours in jobs withconsiderable responsibility and high skill demands may not be halted entirely butmay at least be slowed down.

This leads us to another possible starting point for more effective working-timeregulation, which is to be found in one of the conditions for active flexibility,namely participation. If greater responsibility is devolved to employees, they alsorequire extended competences, powers and resources in order to be able tocope with their new responsibilities. As practical experience shows, thisconnection cannot be taken for granted. There is frequently a discrepancybetween increased responsibilities and the means made available to deal withthem. This discrepancy leads to work intensification and stress (and the stressmay well be self-generated, since it is the “customer” who now confrontsworkers, not the “boss”). The more responsibility they bear and the more directlythey confront the market, the more urgently employees need to fight for greatercontrol of their own employment conditions, including working time.

This requires employees to use their rights to participation in order to exertgreater influence over work organisation. For all their apparent independence,they continue to be dependent employees: the resources they require to copewith their new responsibilities continue to be allocated to them. Ultimately, thecompetition in which they must outperform their rivals, even internal ones, stilltakes place under conditions defined by management. The internal market withinwhich employees operate is always to some extent a simulated market"regulated" by management.

The practical significance of participation for the organisation of working time isevident from the example, already mentioned above, of the tendency in Germanyfor many company agreements on flexible working-time systems to make noprovision for reducing employees' accumulated time credits. The morecompanies adopt management by objectives, the more important becomes thequestion of the implicit performance norms on which the agreed objectives arebased. Can these objectives be achieved within the contractual working time,with the available resources and within the current system of work organisationand division of labour? Are staffing levels in the relevant organisational unitsufficient to cope with the workload? These questions must be made the objectof workplace negotiations if employees operating in flexible working-time systemsare to have any chance of enforcing their rights to time off that would otherwiseexist merely on paper. However, it is difficult to see how working-time regulationcan be made an integral part of active flexibility regimes unless employees areable to exert greater influence on work organisation and the conditions underwhich they work. The issues that have to be dealt with if the agreed or assigned

29

tasks are to be performed effectively range from production scheduling via thedivision and allocation of responsibilities within teams to manpower requirementplanning.

These proposals may seem completely unrealistic under current conditions. Andyet there are signs that suggest they may well be worth pursuing. The IATsurvey of employment structures in Germany, already mentioned above, showedthat employees in group work situations enjoy more opportunities than otheremployees performing similar functions to decide, whether alone or byagreement with colleagues or superiors, when to begin and end work each dayand when to take time off. A higher than average share of them also stated thatthey were able to change their working time at short notice if they so wished.However, their usual weekly working times are somewhat longer than those ofother employees doing similar jobs, although their working time varies just asmuch with workloads.8

The relatively high degree of control that employees engaged in group workinghave over their own working time is probably attributable to the fact they are ableto provide mutual cover for each other. As a result, variations in manpowerrequirements can be more easily absorbed within the group and do not impactunbuffered on each individual employee. In turn, the ability to provide mutualcover requires skill: group workers take part in further training measures morefrequently than average, and improved ability to cover for colleagues is advancedas a reason for the further training in more than one third of cases (Wagner 2000:165). This linkage between skill and participation must be why, "in the case ofgroup work, greater individual autonomy in time management is associated notwith longer but with shorter working times, which is not the case with employeeswhose variable working times are determined by their employers" (ibid. 167).

These findings are no more than very early signs that, even in work organisationregimes based on active flexibility, it is at least theoretically possible to giveworking-time standards greater prominence and to make working-time regulationonce again an integral part of the work organisation regime. Here again,however, there is another side to the coin, namely the reform of working-timeregulation itself. Employees who gain greater influence over work organisation inorder to be able to control their own working time more effectively will also needto be more involved in the application of working-time standards in the workplaceand at individual level. At the same time, working-time regulations - and here

8 The working times of employees engaged in group work cannot be compared with those ofemployees in completely different work organisation regimes but only with the working times ofother employees working in cooperative regimes. The usual weekly working time of workers incooperative regimes (about 42 hours) and of those in group work regimes (slightly more than 41.5hours) is longer than the average for all full-time employees (around 40 hours). Employees insemi-autonomous group work regimes enjoy the greatest opportunities to influence thescheduling of their own working time: 39% determine their own starting and finishing times, aloneor in consultation with colleagues, 70% decide themselves when to take their holidays and 51.6%are also able to change their working time at short notice at any time (Wagner 2000: 157).

30

again they would take very different forms in different countries - mustincreasingly offer not only generally applicable norms but also individual supportmechanisms, that is rights and entitlements (e.g. to time off for training) thatworkers can enforce on an individual basis.

However, even if participation and rising skill levels create better conditions forfuture working-time regulations and working-time standards take greater accountof individual needs, the question of the actual effectiveness of those regulationsremains undecided. My concluding remarks will seek to address this problem.

5 The outlook

The basic argument of this paper is that the increasing market orientation of workand the individualisation of working-time organisation may very graduallyundermine the very foundations of working-time regulation. This in turn givesrise to the risk of a polarisation of working time and income. If working-timeregulation is to maintain or even increase its importance as a buffer betweenmarket fluctuations and individual working times, then it must keep pace with thechange in labour supply and in work organisation. To pick up on Alaluf, Boulinand Plasman’s reference (1995: 15) to the "tension between collectiveagreements and individual freedom of choice", the basic philosophy underlyingany such reforms might be to develop and entrench general working-timestandards in such a way that they are seen to protect individual freedom ofchoice.

Two starting points for the reform and entrenchment of working-time standardshave been proposed here: improving the institutional conditions under whichmen's and women's employment might acquire equal status and the extension ofemployees' rights to influence their working conditions and improve their skills.

While the practicability of the first starting point will depend very much on nationalconditions and traditions (and considerable progress in this direction has alreadybeen made in some European countries), the proposed changes in workorganisation come up against two even more fundamental difficulties. The firsthas its roots in the balance of power within firms. The more rigorously a firmpursues a policy of indirect management, the more directly the "dependent self-employed" are confronted with the basic conditions of their work. This isunderscored by the management of such companies when they point to theirfirms' share value and shareholders' dividend expectations in order to justifyrestrictions. Thus Gadrey (2000: 49) has good reasons for doubting whether theexamples of "negotiated flexibility" already in existence will stand much chance offurther diffusion unless new forms of "corporate and market governance" can beput in place. In view of the link between social time arrangements and models ofgrowth, this must also include the financial markets.

31

The second difficulty lies in the contradictory effect of indirect management onemployees’ behaviour in respect of their own working time. They run the risk ofbecoming trapped in a twofold contradiction:

− the contradiction between their aspirations towards greater autonomy and thelimitations imposed by their lack of true independence;

− the contradiction between their increased autonomy and consequences thishas for employees themselves.

In short, they risk becoming embroiled in a conflict between "identification withthe firm " and "identification with oneself". Increasing identification with the firmmay well reinforce the dynamic that encourages longer working hours.Increasing self-confidence, however, may also make employees more aware ofthe conditions that have to be met if they are to gain control over and limit whatthey perceive to be excessively long working hours.

And best, therefore, the proposals for reform discussed here might improve theconditions for resolving the problem of working-time regulation. By themselves,they will not solve the problem. In future, working-time regulation will be lessable than in the past to provide a temporary solution for working-time disputes.However, it will be able to indicate how and with the aid of which institutions suchdisputes might be settled, as well as the form such settlements might take. Thiswill be all the more important since disputes at the working time will no longererupt primarily between employees and employers but rather betweenemployees themselves (whether within a team or between competing teams)and, ultimately, within each of the individuals involved as well. For this reason,one of the objectives of working-time regulation must be to counter theindividualisation of working-time organisation by firms in order that working-timedisputes may be resolved publicly through a political process. The hotly disputedlegislation on the working time of senior managers in France may be an earlyexample of how general standards may become the seed crystal for thepoliticisation of working-time disputes in the new work organisation regimes.

32

Bibliography

Alaluf, Mateo / Boulin, Jean-Yves / Plasman, Robert (1995): Dauer und Organisation derArbeitszeit im Spannungsfeld zwischen Kollektivvereinbarungen und individueller Wahlfreiheit.In: Hoffmann, Reiner / Lapeyre, Jean (Hg.): Arbeitszeit – Lebenszeit. Perspektiven einereuropäischen Arbeitszeitpolitik. Münster

Anxo, Dominique / Flood, Lennart / Rubery, Jill (1999): Household Income Distribution anWorking Time Patterns: An International Comparison. Graue Reihe des Instituts Arbeit undTechnik, 199-05. Gelsenkirchen

Anxo, Dominique / Nyman, Håkan (1999): Retail trade Sweden (NESY working paper,unpublished)

Appelbaum, Eileen (1995): New Work Systems in the New World Order. In: Mishel, L. / Schmitt,J. (Hrsg.): Beware the U.S. Model. Jobs and Wages in a Deregulated Economy. Washington,D.C.: 37-66

Atkinson, John (1984): Manpower Strategies for Flexible Organizations. In: PersonnelManagement, August: 28-31

Baethge, Martin (1999): Transformation des Industrialismus – Konturen derDienstleistungsbeschäftigung im 21. Jahrhundert (Ms.). Vgl. auch Baethge, Martin (2000): Derunendlich langsame Abschied vom Industrialismus und die Zukunft derDienstleistungsbeschäftigung. WSI-Mitteilungen, Nr. 3: 149-156

Baret, Christophe / Lehndorff, Steffen / Sparks, Leigh (2000): Flexible Working in FoodRetailing. A Comparison between France, Germany, the United Kingdom and Japan. London-New York

Bauer, Frank / Bosch, Gerhard / Bundesmann-Jansen, Jörg / Groß, Hermann / Stille, Frank /Wagner, Alexandra (1998): Öffnungszeiten im Einzelhandel 1996 - Vor und nach Änderung desLadenschlußgesetzes. Hrsg. vom Ministerium für Arbeit, Gesundheit und Soziales des LandesNordrhein-Westfalen. Köln, Gelsenkirchen, Berlin

Bielenski, Harald / Hartmann, Josef (1999): Employment Options of the Future. Family andCareer. In: Infratest Burke Sozialforschung (Hg.): Employment Options of the Future. FirstAnalyses of a Representative Survey in all 15 EU member States and in Norway on behalf ofthe European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions. München

Bittner, Susanne / Schietinger, Marc / Schroth, Jochen / Weinkopf, Claudia (2000): Call Center –Entwicklungsstand und Perspektiven. Eine Literaturanalyse. Gelsenkirchen: Projektbericht desInstituts Arbeit und Technik 2000-01

Boll, Joachim Lyngaard / Csonka, Agi (1999): The retail trade sector in Denmark (NESY workingpaper, unpublished)

Bosch, Gerhard (1998): Zukunft der Erwerbsarbeit – Strategien für Arbeit und Umwelt. Frankfurtam Main/New York

Bosch, Gerhard (1999): Working time: Tendencies and emerging issues. International LabourReview, Vol. 138, No.2: 131-149

33

Bosch, Gerhard (2000a): Der Zusammenhang von Arbeitszeit und Qualifikation. Gutachten.Gelsenkirchen: Institut Arbeit und Technik (Ms.)

Bosch, Gerhard (2000b): „Dienstleistungslücke“ in Deutschland. Vergleichende Perspektivenzur Beschäftigung und Arbeitsmarktorganisation im Dienstleistungssektor. Gelsenkirchen (Ms.)

Bosch, Gerhard (2000c): Entgrenzung der Erwerbsarbeit – Lösen sich die Grenzen zwischenErwerbs- und Nichterwerbsarbeit auf? In: Minssen, H. (Hg.): Begrenzte Entgrenzungen.Wandlungen von Organisation und Arbeit. Berlin: 249-268

Bosch, Gerhard / Dawkins, Peter / Michon, François (Hrsg.) (1994): Times are changing.Working ime in 14 industrialised countries. Geneva

Bosch, Gerhard / Lehndorff, Steffen (1998): Réduction du temps de travail et emploi. Travail etemploi, n° 74: 125-142

Bosch, Gerhard (1996): Jahresarbeitszeiten - Flexibilität auch für Stammbelegschaften. in:Journal für Sozialforschung 36. Jg. Heft 1: 3-22

Coase, Ronald H. (1988): The Firm, the Market and the Law. Chicago

Cross, Gary (1993): Time and Money. The Making of Consumer Culture. London and New York

Cross, Gary (1997): Historical Origins of the Normal Workday. Paper presented at the"Rescheduling Time” Symposium, Manchester, 6-7 November 1997

DIHT (2000): Arbeitszeitflexibilisierung zur Steigerung der Wettbewerbsfähigkeit. DeutscherIndustrie- und Handelstag

Dingeldey, Irene (1999): Begünstigungen und Belastungen familialer Erwerbs- undArbeitszeitmuster in Steuer- und Sozialversicherungssystemen - Ein Vergleich zehneuropäischer Länder. Graue Reihe des Instituts Arbeit und Technik, 199-04. Gelsenkirchen. Vgl.auch auf englisch unter http://iat-info.iatge.de

EPOC Research Group (1997): New forms of work organisation. Can Europe realise itspotential? Results of a survey of direct employee participation in Europe. Dublin: EuropeanFoundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions

Eurostat European Labour Force Survey, 1994, 1997. Luxembourg

Flecker, Jörg (2000): „Sachzwang Flexibilisierung“? Unternehmensreorganisation und flexibleBeschäftigungsformen. In: Minssen, H. (Hg.): Begrenzte Entgrenzungen. Wandlungen vonOrganisation und Arbeit. Berlin: 269-292

Freathy, Paul / Sparks, Leigh (2000): The organisation of working time in large UK food retailfirms. In: Baret/Lehndorff/Sparks: 83-113

Freeman, Richard B. / Schettkat, Ronald (2000): Differentials in Service Industry EmploymentGrowth: Germany and the US in the Comparable German American Structural Database.Report prepared for the Commission of the European Communities Directorate GeneralEmployment and Social Affairs (forthcoming)

Gadrey, Jean (2000): Nouvelle économie, nouvelle mythe? Forthcoming

34

Gewerkschaft HBV (Hg.) (1995): Deregulierung und Ladenschluß. Arbeiten und Leben imEinzelhandel. Düsseldorf

Groß, Hermann / Munz, Eva (1999): Erste Ergebnisse einer 1999 durchgeführtenrepräsentativen Beschäftigtenbefragung zu Arbeitszeitformen und –wünschen. Köln: ISO Institutzur Erforschung sozialer Chancen

Harvey, Mark (1999): Economies of Time: A Framework for Analysing the Restructuring ofEmployment Relations. In: Felstead, Alan / Jewson, Nik (eds.): Global Trends in FlexibleLabour. Houndsmills and London: 21-42

Häußermann, Hartmut / Siebel, Walter (1995): Dienstleistungsgesellschaften. Frankfurt am Main

Herrmann, Christa / Promberger, Markus / Singer, Susanne / Trinczek, Rainer (1999): ForcierteArbeitszeitflexibilisierung. Die 35-Stunden-Woche in der betrieblichen und gewerkschaftlichenPraxis. Berlin

Huffschmid, Jörg (1999): Politische Ökonomie der Finanzmärkte. Hamburg

IG Metall Bezirk Hannover (2000): metall nachrichten für die Beschäftigten der Volkswagen AG,28. Februar 2000

Jacobsen, Heike / Hilf, Ellen (1998): Beschäftigung im Einzelhandel. Erste Ergebnisse einerStudie zu den Auswirkungen der neuen Ladenöffnungszeiten im Einzelhandel. Im Auftrag desBundesministeriums für Arbeit und Sozialordnung. sfs Beiträge aus der Forschung, Band 107.Dortmund

Jany-Catrice, Florence (1999): Case studies retail trade France (NESY working paper,unpublished)

Kirsch, Johannes / Klein, Martina / Lehndorff, Steffen / Voss-Dahm, Dorothea (1999): ”Darf'setwas weniger sein?” Arbeitszeiten und Beschäftigungsbedingungen imLebensmitteleinzelhandel. Ein europäischer Vergleich. Berlin

Lehndorff, Steffen (1997): Zeitnot und Zeitsouveränität in der just-in-time-Fabrik.Arbeitszeitorganisation und Arbeitsbedingungen in der europäischen Automobilzulieferindustrie.München und Mering (also available in English: Time constraints and autonomous timemanagement. The labour process in automotive component plants under the just-in-timeregime. In: Bosch, Gerhard / Meulders, Danièle / Michon, François (eds.) (1997): Working time:new issues, new norms, new measures. Bruxelles (Editions du DULBEA): 181-216)

Lehndorff, Steffen (ed.) (1999a): New working time systems, work organisation and re-distribution of work. Final Report. Gelsenkirchen: Graue Reihe des Instituts Arbeit und Technik1999-03

Lehndorff, Steffen (1999b): Striving for greater personnel flexibility: the retail trade and thesegmentation of internal labour markets. Paper to be presented at the International WorkingParty on Labour Market Segmentation Bremen, 9-11 September 1999

Lehndorff, Steffen (1999c): From „collective“ to „individual“ reductions in working time? Trendsand experience with working time in the European Union. Transfer, European Review of Labourand Research, Vol. 4, No. 4: 598-620

Lindecke, Christiane (2000): Flexible Arbeitszeitorganisation in der Praxis. Eine Untersuchung insechs Unternehmen. Forthcoming

35

Lindecke, Christiane / Lehndorff, Steffen (1997): Aktuelle Tendenzen flexiblerArbeitszeitorganisation. Ein Überblick über neuere Betriebsvereinbarungen. WSI-Mitteilungen,Heft 7: 471 – 480 (also available in English: Current trends in the flexible organization of workingtime in Germany. A survey of some recent internal agreements in the engineering industry. ILOSectoral Activities Programme Working Papers. Geneva)

Minssen, Heiner (Hg.) (2000): Begrenzte Entgrenzungen. Wandlungen von Organisation undArbeit. Berlin

Moldaschl, Manfred / Sauer, Dieter (2000): Internalisierung des Marktes – Zur neuen Dialektikvon Kooperation und Herrschaft. In: Minssen, H. (Hg.): Begrenzte Entgrenzungen. Wandlungenvon Organisation und Arbeit. Berlin: 205-224

Nätti, Jouko / Anttila, Timo (1999): Retail trade Finland (NESY working paper, unpublished)

Nordhause-Janz, Jürgen / Pekruhl, Ulrich (Hrsg.) (2000): Arbeiten in neuen Strukturen?Partizipation, Kooperation, Autonomie und Gruppenarbeit in Deutschland. München und Mering

OECD (1999) Employment Outlook. Paris

Peters, Klaus (1997): Die neue Autonomie in der Arbeit. Der Begriff der Autonomie und dieReorganisation von Unternehmen. Düsseldorf: Deutscher Gewerkschaftsbund – Informationenzur Angestelltenpolitik 05/97 (also available in English and French: The new autonomy at work /La nouvelle autonomie dans le travail)

Peters, Klaus (2000): Die neue Selbständigkeit in der Arbeit. In: Pickshaus, Klaus / Peters,Klaus / Glißmann, Wilfried: „Der Arbeit wieder ein Maß geben.“ Neue Managementkonzepte undAnforderungen an eine gewerkschaftliche Arbeitspolitik. Supplement der Zeitschrift Sozialismus2-2000. Hamburg: 20-29

Rubery, Jill (1998): Working time in the UK. Transfer, European Review of Labour and Research,Vol. 4, No. 4: 657-677

Rubery, Jill (1999): The shaping of work and working time in the service sector. (NESY workingpaper, unpublished)

Rubery, Jill / Smith, Mark / Fagan, Colette / Grimshaw, Damian (1998): Women and EuropeanEmployment. London and New York

Sauer, Dieter / Döhl, Volker (1994): Kontrolle durch Autonomie - Zum Formwandel vonHerrschaft bei unternehmensübergreifender Rationalisierung. In: Sydow, J./ Windeler, A. (Hg):Management interorganisationaler Beziehungen. Opladen: 258-274

Streeck, Wolfgang / Heinze, Rolf (1999): An Arbeit fehlt es nicht. Der Spiegel, Nr. 19: 38-45

Voß, G. Günter / Pongratz, Hans J. (1998): Der Arbeitskraftunternehmer. Eine neue Grundformder Ware Arbeitskraft? Kölner Zeitschrift für Soziologie und Sozialpsychologie, Vol. 50, No. 1:131-158

Wagner, Alexandra (1999): ”Working times of high-level white-collar workers in Germany. Anevaluation of the SOEP,” Paper presented at the 7th International Seminar on Working Time, 18-20 February 1999, Gelsenkirchen: Institut Arbeit und Technik

Wagner, Alexandra (2000): Zeitautonomie oder Scheinautonomie? Arbeitszeitregelungeninnerhalb und außerhalb von Gruppenarbeit. In: Nordhause-Janz/Pekruhl: 139-172

36

Annexe

Figure 1: The distribution of hours normally worked per week in Germany, France,Great Britain and Denmark (dependent employees, 1987-95)

USUAL WEEKLY WORKING HOURS, EMPLOYEES1987,1990, 1995, GERMANY, MEN

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

1-9 10-14 15-19 20-24 25-29 30-34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45-49 50+

Hours

%

1987 (%) 1990 (%) 1995 (%)

USUAL WEEKLY WORKING HOURS, EMPLOYEES1987,1990, 1995, GERMANY, WOMEN

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

1-9 10-14 15-19 20-24 25-29 30-34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45-49 50+

Hours

%

1987 (%) 1990 (%) 1995 (%)

Source: Eurostat

37

USUAL WEEKLY WORKING HOURS, EMPLOYEES1987,1990, 1996, FRANCE, MEN

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

1-9 10-14 15-19 20-24 25-29 30-34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45-49 50+

Hours

%

1987 (%) 1990 (%) 1996 (%)

USUAL WEEKLY WORKING HOURS, EMPLOYEES1987,1990, 1996, FRANCE, WOMEN

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

1-9 10-14 15-19 20-24 25-29 30-34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45-49 50+

Hours

%

1987 (%) 1990 (%) 1996 (%)

Source: Eurostat

38

USUAL WEEKLY WORKING HOURS, EMPLOYEES1987,1990, 1996, DENMARK, MEN

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

1-9 10-14 15-19 20-24 25-29 30-34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45-49 50+

Hours

%

1987 (%) 1990 (%) 1996 (%)

USUAL WEEKLY WORKING HOURS, EMPLOYEES1987,1990, 1996, DENMARK, WOMEN

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

1-9 10-14 15-19 20-24 25-29 30-34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45-49 50+

Hours

%

1987 (%) 1990 (%) 1996 (%)

Source: Eurostat

39

USUAL WEEKLY WORKING HOURS, EMPLOYEES1987,1990, 1995, UK, MEN

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

1-9 10-14 15-19 20-24 25-29 30-34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45-49 50+

Hours

%

1987 (%) 1990 (%) 1995 (%)

USUAL WEEKLY WORKING HOURS, EMPLOYEES1987,1990, 1995, UK, WOMEN

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

1-9 10-14 15-19 20-24 25-29 30-34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45-49 50+

Hours

%

1987 (%) 1990 (%) 1995 (%)

Source: Eurostat

40

Figure 2: New forms of working-time organisation

Source: own diagram

Desynchronisation of working time and free time through extension ofoperating and opening hours

Characteristics:

� Decoupling of working time and operating hours; shift work

� Extension of working time into the evening, night and weekend

Passive flexibilitybased on employee availiability

� Working-time changes by order

� High functional differentiation

� Fragmentation of working timeand employment

Active flexibility based on self-organisation

� Working-time changes throughparticipation or on employees’initiative

� Low functional differentiation

� Stable employmentrelationships

41

Table 1: The use of flexible working-time forms in German firms (%)*

Sector Flexibleweeklyworking

time

Annualworking

timeaccounts

Conventionalflexitime

Flextimewithout

corehours

Teleworking Lifetimeworking

timeaccounts

Noflexibleworking

times

Services 28 14 25 10 6 1 41

Distribution 34 19 14 4 2 1 45

Manufacturing 27 37 34 6 4 2 31

Construction 22 57 7 2 1 1 29

Total 29 28 25 7 4 1 37

*Basis: 19,000 firms surveyed by the Chambers of Industry and Commerce at the beginning of 2000;Multiple entries possibleSource: DIHT (2000)

42

Table 2: The delegation of decision-making to groups of employees (largest group)

Question: Has management granted formally constituted GROUPS decision-making powers in respect of oneor more of the following aspects of their work as a GROUP without having to consult with direct supervisors?

% all establishmentsDenmark Germany Netherlands Sweden Average of

10 EU memberstates

Yes 54.6 55.9 68.0 100.0 64.7

No 45.4 44.1 32.0 0.0 35.3

% of all establishments in which decision-making is delegated to work groupsDenmark Germany Netherlands Sweden Average of

10 EU memberstates

Work allocation (content) 20.3 34.0 39.7 31.2 26.1

Work scheduling (time) 50.0 39.1 38.7 46.2 28.8

Work quality 18.0 20.2 30.0 26.5 21.0

Adherence to deadlines 18.5 29.5 30.0 20.8 21.5

Attendance and absence checks 7.4 29.2 20.1 17.1 15.4

Job rotation 0.0 12.7 7.8 25.0 14.5

Job agreements with other groupsin the plant/establishment

29.3 19.8 28.1 0.0 21.2

Improvement of work processes 33.6 28.8 42.0 34.3 28.5

No response 37.5 39.3 26.7 43.6 46.5

Source: Special analysis of the EPOC study (Bosch 2000a)

43

Table 3: Share of full-time who normally work 46 hours or more per week, as percentageof all full-time employees (1994, 1997)

DE DK ES FR NL UK

1994 6.9 3.4 10.9 6.6 9.2 4.9 10.7 5.1 1.7 0.7 38.0 15.4

1997 9.1 4.7 8.6 5.2 10.0 5.6 10.5 4.9 1.9 1.0 40.4 17.1

Source: Eurostat European Labour Force Survey, 1994, 1997

Figure 3: Average agreed and actual weekly working times for white-collar workers inhigh-level jobs with managerial responsibilities in Western Germany

40.237.8 36.6 36.8 37.1

45.8 45.6 46.245.1 43.9

0

5

10

15

20

25

30

35

40

45

50

1984 1990 1994 1996 1997

A greed W orking T im es A ctual W orking Tim es

Source: Wagner (1999)

44

Table 4: Average length of and variation in actual weekly working times (dependentemployees, figures in hours)

Employee category Actual weekly working time Range of variation

All full-time employees 39.7 4.25

All full-time employees with constantweekly working times

38,1 0

All full-time employees with working timethat fluctuates becauuse of variableworkloads

44.5 13.0

Source: Wagner (2000b)

Table 5: Share of women and part-timers in total dependent employment in the retailtrade

Country Feminisationrate (%)

Part-timerate (%)

Details on part-time rate

Germany (1998)Retail tradeSelf-servicedepartmentstores

71.1no data

51.466.4

16.7% fewer than 15 hours per week22.2 % fewer than 15 hours per week

Great Britain (1997) 68.2 56.1 -

Netherlands (1996) 60.7 55 Average time for all retail employees of 19hours/week

France (1996)Retail tradeSupermarkets

5667

34.135.3

10.3% fewer than 19.5 hours/week6.0% fewer than 19.5 hours/week

Sweden (1998) 62.7 33.0 -

Denmark (1997) 56,3 39 -

Finland (1998)Retail tradeSupermarkets

67.9kA

3957

22% fewer than 30 hours/weekno data

Sources: Statistisches Bundesamt, Jacobsen/Hilf (1998), Kirsch et al. (1999), Freathy/Sparks (2000),Jany-Catrice (1999), Nätti/Anttila (1999), Anxo/Nyman (1999), Boll/Csonka (1999)

45

Table 4: The sharing of paid work and working time among men and women – Presentsituation and preferences by region (%)*

Type Scandinavian1

Mediterranian2

Othercountries3

Scandinavian1

Mediterranian2

Othercountries3

Employed men Present situation Preference

Man FT/Woman FT 52 33 37 37 37 28

Man FT/Woman PT 25 10 23 24 20 28

Man employed/Womannot employed

18 52 34 4 18 17

Man PT/Woman PT 2 2 2 26 10 16

Else/n.a. 3 3 4 9 15 11

Total 100 100 100 100 100 100

* Base: Men who are employed and who are married / live with a partner1 DK, FIN, NOR, SWE2 GR, I, E3 A, B, F, D, IRL, LUX, NL, P, UKSource: Bielenski/Hartmann (1999: 28)