IG Metall discusses working time policy

Source: WSI Collective Bargaining Archive.

According to IG Metall’s 'manifesto for the future', entitled 'Offensive 2010', which is to be the basis for debates and resolutions over future main tasks at the union’s next national congress in October 2003 (DE0206205F), the union's working time targets are:

• individual working time reductions, such as different working times for part-time workers;

• working time reductions for workers who suffer more from strenuous working conditions, such as shiftworkers and parents taking care of their children; and

• a general working time reduction.

Working time reduction in eastern Germany

IG Metall intends to cut working time in eastern German metalworking industries through a staged reduction in weekly hours from 38 to 35 hours, over a currently unspecified period, to bring it in line with the level in western Germany. At present, employees in eastern German metalworking generally work around one month longer per year than their western colleagues.

While there was agreement on this issue at the October conference, the strategy to be used was controversial. Mr Zwickel, the IG Metall president, declared his preference for negotiating with the employers over hours reductions in eastern Germany without terminating the existing framework agreements on working time. However, Hasso Düvel, head of the union's Berlin, Brandenburg and Sachsen district organisation, expressed a wish to terminate the framework agreement in his district if no compromise has been reached by the beginning of 2003. Thus, from the end of April 2003, it would be possible to go on strike over the issue. Mr Düvel's organisation has been negotiating for a reduction of working time to 35 hours a week for 12 months.

Establishing the 35-hour week

A general working time reduction below 35 hours a week remains on the agenda of IG Metall as one instrument to achieve a redistribution of work. However, the focus is currently on establishing the 35-hour week throughout IG Metall’s organisational area, and on seeking a convergence between actual and collectively agreed working time in western Germany.

Up until the mid-1990s, average actual working time was reduced as collectively agreed working time fell. However, since the mid-1990s the average working time of full-time employees in western Germany has increased and indeed approached the higher level found in eastern Germany. According to the socio-economic panel (Sozio-ökonomisches Panel, SOEP) of the German Institute for Economic Research (Deutsches Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung, DIW), the average actual weekly working time of full-time employees in western Germany fell between 1984 and 1993 from 43.7 to 41.8 hours, but has increased since, standing at 44.6 hours in 2000.

According to Jürgen Peters, the vice-president of IG Metall, the 35-hour week must be established as 'standard working time' in the whole IG Metall organisational area, in order to counteract the prolongation of working time and thus avoid 'open-ended' working time. At the same time, employees’ opportunities to adjust their working time more flexibly in line with their personal needs must be enhanced. According to a survey conducted for IG Metall’s recent 'debate on the future' (DE0104219F), its members particularly expect the union to give its support to a reduction in overtime hours and the observance of collectively agreed working time.

In addition, some activists demand abolition of the '13%/18% quota' scheme. The collective bargaining parties in metalworking have an agreement which allows 13% or 18% of the employees in a company to continue to work between 35 and 40 hours a week. An increasing number of companies have exceeded this agreed quota. A recent survey of German automobile manufacturers (Arbeitszeitregulierung in der deutschen Automobilindustrie, IG Metall Vorstand, Funktionsbereich Tarifpolitik, Grüne Reihe Nr. 10, 2002) found that the quota has been considerably exceeded in some cases. In some companies, between 40% and 50% of white-collar workers had agreed an individual weekly working time above 35 hours.

Working time organisation

A counterweight to the introduction of the 35-hour week in western Germany was IG Metall's agreement to accept the employers’ demand for an increased flexibilisation of working time organisation in order to adjust working time to fluctuations in orders. Despite the agreed 35-hour week, real working time has increased, overtime hours have remained at a high level (DE0202207F), and many workers' working time accounts have built up high time-credits which often cannot be compensated in time off. Consequently, according to IG Metall, stress at the workplace has increased. It therefore intends to approach more flexible working time arrangements offensively. The aim is to achieve collectively agreed regulation of individual working time organisation, in order to 'civilise' its flexibilisation and thus reach a balance between employers’ interests in differentiated regulation at company level, and employees’ interests in a greater 'time sovereignty' to enable them to adjust their working time to their personal needs more flexibly. The union's focus is on:

• complete registration of the working hours actually worked;

• more individual rights for employees to manage their working time organisation;

• improved arrangements to combine work and family life;

• collectively agreed arrangements on the organisation of working time accounts and the compensation of overtime hours through time off; and

• a collectively agreed safeguard for working time accounts in the event of an employer's insolvency.

Employers' reactions

According to Martin Kannegießer, the president of the Gesamtmetall metalworking employers' association, Gesamtmetall will not terminate the framework agreements on working time. He also emphasised that the nationwide introduction of the 2002 pay framework agreement (Entgelt-Rahmentarifvertrag, ERA) which abolishes the traditional distinction between white- and blue-collar workers (DE0205206F) currently has priority in collective bargaining policy. Gesamtmetall is also opposed to the introduction of the 35-hour week in eastern Germany. Mr Kannegießer stated that an adjustment of eastern working time to the western German level, which corresponds to a working time cut of 8.5%, will not be accepted by employees if it means reduced wages, nor by companies if it means additional costs. Furthermore, few companies in eastern Germany have a level of productivity comparable with western German companies, and they have an average level of productivity one third below that in western Germany.

Gesamtmetall has called for action to allow greater opportunities for flexibilising working time through collective agreements. According to a survey from the Ifo Institute for Economic Research (Ifo Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung), commissioned by Gesamtmetall, 88% of all companies in the metalworking industries have taken advantage of the quota scheme (see above) and thus agreed individual contracts for some employees providing for a 40-hour week, and nearly two-thirds of the companies would like to extend this regulation. Furthermore, two out of three companies agree that working time at company level is too short and that existing opportunities for flexibilisation are not sufficient.

Commentary

Following the October meeting, IG Metall launched an initiative aimed at being more forceful than in recent years on questions of working time policy and ending its defensive position in this field. Criticism has been heard from some quarters that the union has had no social vision and no overall concept of collective bargaining policies, and the heated discussions and discontent of union activists at the meeting reflected this. It was this criticism that highlighted the importance of approaching the area of working time questions with such an initiative. At the same time, this made clear that the union requires staying power to develop common goals and strategies on working time questions which will lead to a sufficient mobilisation of its members on these issues.

In addition, in 2003 there is to be no pay bargaining round in German metalworking, because in 2002 IG Metall and Gesamtmetall concluded a pay agreement with a duration of two years. With regard to the question of terminating current working time framework agreements, this means that there could be a bargaining round in 2003 focusing exclusively on working time policies without a connection to new pay agreements which would make it more difficult for the union to achieve its claims. Furthermore, the 2002 settlement provided for the modernisation of the metalworking pay framework agreement, so that the first priority for most of the bargaining districts has been the introduction of the new pay grading system which companies will have to put in place by the end of 2007. (Verena Di Pasquale, Institute for Economic and Social Research, WSI)