Introducing the 35-hour week in the central civil service

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In October 2001, three months from the January 2002 deadline for the introduction of the 35-hour week in France's central civil service, almost all ministries have worked out their national framework for working time reduction, based either on an agreement signed by trade unions or a unilateral decision by the ministry in question. The procedures followed have varied. However, some areas of contention still exist, as for instance at the Ministries of Justice and Culture.

Following the adoption of the second 'Aubry' law on the introduction of the 35-hour working week in early 2000 (FR0001137F), the reduction of working time is due to come into force for all civil servants on 1 January 2002. In the central government civil service, which has 2.2 million employees, the failure of overall working time reduction negotiations in February 2000 meant that each ministry had to take responsibility for deciding the format for the transition to the 35-hour week (FR0003151F). Although the drawing up of sectoral frameworks for the introduction of the 35-hour week has not generated disputes as wide-reaching as those in the hospitals branch of the civil service (FR0110102N), tensions still remain in some ministries.

Two rules framing the move to the 35-hour week

After the failure of the central negotiations with the civil service unions, the Minister for the Civil Service provided a structure for the implementation of the reduction of working time in a decree published on 25 August 2000. This provided for the reduction of annual working time to 1,600 hours. In the Minister's own words, this figure represents both an 'upper and a lower limit'. Trade unions and employees have been concerned that the annualisation of working time might give the government an opportunity to cut back on the benefits accrued in many civil service departments in terms of paid holidays. These extra days of leave were often granted, at the time, to compensate for low pay. Another source of differences is the interpretation of the nature of the exemptions to the 1,600-hour working time rule, provided for in the decree. Annual working time is to be lowered to 1,575 hours for those carrying out 'onerous' work, and 1,540 hours for those working night shifts and at weekends. Although the latter has posed few problems, defining which are 'onerous' jobs has been more contentious.

The other principle laid down by the government is that the changeover to the 35-hour week should occur without creating jobs. To achieve this, the civil service ministry is banking on the improvement in productivity that will come from the reorganisation of work. The unions fear that this failure to take on new staff will result in lower-quality public services. The negotiations in the individual ministries have most frequently come to grief over job creation. An exception to this rule has already been made in the hospitals branch of the civil service, where the creation of 45,000 new jobs has so far been planned (FR0109101F). More jobs are also planned for some particularly short-staffed ministries.

Diverse implementation procedures

From duly signed agreements to unilateral decisions, the strategies of the various departments in implementing the 35-hour week have been varied and even imaginative. Negotiations have resulted in an agreement being signed in only three ministries:

• the Ministry of Defence was the first, in summer 2001, to reach an agreement covering its 90,000 civilian staff (FR0108175N);

• the Ministry of the Environment (7,000 civil servants) concluded an agreement, though it was signed on the trade union side only by the French Democratic Confederation of Labour (Confédération française démocratique du travail, CFDT), which won 43% of the vote at the latest workplace elections of employee representatives at the Ministry; and

• the most significant agreement was signed on 16 October 2001 and covers the 280,000 non-teaching staff employed in the Ministry of Education in over 8,000 workplaces (regional ministry offices, schools etc). The framework agreement was signed by 14 unions affiliated to CFDT, the General Confederation of Labour (Confédération générale du travail, CGT), the Unitary Union Federation (Fédération Syndicale Unitaire, FSU) and the National Federation of Independent Unions (Union nationale des syndicats autonomes, UNSA), which represent 75% of the staff concerned. The different formats for the reduction of working time - on a weekly basis, or by days off in lieu - have not affected the nine-week holidays specific to the academic year which are already enjoyed by these employees. In addition, the ways in which the annualised calculation of working time is to be managed is to the signatories' satisfaction. The unions, however, have criticised the fact that the reduction of working time has not led to specific new jobs being created but is based on a long-term recruitment plan previously adopted by the Ministry.

Some departments have not been able to obtain an agreement, but the implementation of the 35-hour week has been the subject of consultation with the unions and the employees. The Minister for the Civil Service, Michel Sapin, has labelled this situation 'non-confrontational non-agreement', which means that the unions have refused to sign agreements but have not mounted opposition to the process. This is the case in the Ministry of Road Maintenance and Infrastructure, and the Ministry of Agriculture (100,000 and 30,000 employees respectively).

In the Ministry of Road Maintenance and Infrastructure, negotiations foundered on the issue of job creation. The unions were demanding 9,000 new posts and obtained only 300, plus the unfreezing of 1,200 jobs budgeted for but not filled for several years. In order to defuse the dispute over jobs, management at the Ministry launched a joint rethinking of work organisation as early as June 2000. The employees, meeting in small working groups, produced an inventory of the tasks they had to carry out and attempted to eliminate those they felt were useless. On a local basis, staff selected one of four formats for reducing working time put forward by the management. The unions, however, fear that Ministry staff will no longer be able to perform some duties, such as snow-clearing on roads, thus forcing local authorities to hire private sector contractors.

In the face of the majority unions in the Ministry of Finance refusing to sign a framework agreement, its management opted for a strategy of pilot projects targeted on middle management. In this way, 150 sections in the department anticipated the changeover to the 35-hour week with the support of private consultants. At the same time, 1,000 'mentors' from the department's managerial staff were trained in the reduction of working time in order to go and help decentralised offices cope with the changeover. Two-thirds of the Ministry's 180,000 civil servants are thus already working a 35-hour week. However, even the unions most in favour of these pilot projects, such as the General Confederation of Labour-Force ouvrière (Confédération générale du travail-Force ouvrière, CGT-FO), have since stressed the difficulty of reducing working time without creating new jobs.

In some ministries, the 35-hour week has ended in confrontation. As the many disputes that have erupted over the past two years testify (FR0011199N), the Ministry of Justice is one where the staffing issue is the most sensitive. On 26 September 2001, staff employed in the legal system (court registrars, prison warders, social workers etc) took part in a well-supported one-day strike called by CFDT, CGT, CGT-FO, FSU and the independent unions. At the moment, no agreement is in sight, particularly in terms of job creation. In the Ministry of Culture, dispute has revolved around the ways in which the reduction of working time is to be implemented. Even though Minister Sapin sees 'no major disputes on the horizon', strife is still to come in the civil service, for example when the time comes to reduce teachers' working time.

Commentary

Once the format of the changeover to the 35-hour week has been adopted, responsibility for the reorganisation of work will fall to local civil service managers. They will then have to resolve the following dilemma: how can the same workload be spread over a workforce which has not increased, while working time has been reduced? (Catherine Vincent, IRES)