Unions and churches oppose extension of stock exchange trading hours

Following changes to the Working Time Act in 1998, the German stock exchange will now be opening on four public holidays a year, beginning with Ascension Day on 1 June 2000. Trade unions and churches oppose this extension, arguing that public and religious holidays should be protected. Daily trading hours are also being extended.

On 1 June 2000 - Ascension Day - stock-market transactions were conducted on a religious public holiday for the first time in Germany. In 1998, the Working Time Act (Arbeitszeitgesetz) was amended with an additional article concerning work on Sundays and holidays. Referring to the introduction of the new European single currency, businesses concerned with monetary transactions, money, securities and foreign exchange transactions are now allowed to work on public holidays, which are not uniform across Europe. On the basis of the revised Act, the German Stock Exchange (Deutsche Börse AG) decided in 1999 to open on four religious and public holidays from 2000 on. It is also planned to open the stock exchange on Whit Monday, Corpus Christi and 3 October, the day commemorating German unification. In addition, Deutsche Börse has decided to extend the daily trading hours by two and a half hours until 20.00 from 2 June 2000. To adapt their trading hours to the standard in the USA and other European countries, several European stock exchanges have recently extended their daily trading hours.

The Commerce, Banking and Insurance Union (Gewerkschaft Handel, Banken und Versicherungen, HBV), the German White-Collar Workers' Union (Deutsche Angestellten Gewerkschaft, DAG) and the two main German Christian churches, Catholic and Protestant, are opposed to Deutsche Börse's plan to work on holidays, and held a demonstration in front of the stock exchange in Frankfurt to protest against it. They argue that that the Working Time Act allows work on holidays only if the competitiveness of a business is endangered. They state that this is not the case for Deutsche Börse. Therefore, they expect the State Office for Work Protection and Safety Technology (Staatliches Amt für Arbeitsschutz und Sicherheitstechnik) in Frankfurt to intervene to prevent trading on holidays. However, this office is under the supervision of the regional ministry for social affairs in Hesse, which has already given permission to Deutsche Börse to trade on public holidays.

Having urged the federal minister of labour to withdraw the relevant article in the Working Time Act, the HBV union now plans to take the regional ministry for social affairs to court on the one hand, and to seek an interim order to stop the extension of daily trading hours until 20.00 on the other hand. In this context, HBV emphasised that not only stockbrokers have to work on holidays, but that white-collar workers in other businesses or in the financial departments of large-scale enterprises will also have to do so in consequence. The union estimates that, depending on the size of each bank, between 5% and 30% of all employees will have to work on holidays. HBV also states that it is true that other countries have extended their daily trading hours, but that no other European country has sacrificed a public holiday in order to trade in shares. It is thus feared that Germany will set the trend for a European-wide abolition of holidays. The Protestant church protests that this negatively influences not only employees themselves but also partnerships and family life. Unions and churches fear that the cultural benefit of holidays will be undermined by this step.

While unions and churches mainly criticise opening the stock exchange on holidays, other parties directly concerned, like smaller banks, also criticise the extension of daily trading hours. Many stockbrokers will have to work in shifts, and banks and brokers will have to make more employees available. While major banks greet the extension, smaller banks fear that the extra work will not be profitable. According to statements from several traders, these pessimistic expectations were fulfilled on Ascension Day 2000.