Working time falling and becoming more flexible

Martín Artiles, Antonio

Overview

Article

Working time falling and becoming more flexible

Published: 28 October 2003

Collectively agreed working time has been undergoing significant changes in Spain in recent years. The annual duration of working time has been falling at a moderate rate, while there has been increasing flexibility in the organisation of working time, through methods such as annualisation and the irregular distribution of hours over the year. Drawing on recent data, this article outlines the situation in 2003.

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Collectively agreed working time has been undergoing significant changes in Spain in recent years. The annual duration of working time has been falling at a moderate rate, while there has been increasing flexibility in the organisation of working time, through methods such as annualisation and the irregular distribution of hours over the year. Drawing on recent data, this article outlines the situation in 2003.

The Economic and Social Council (Consejo Economico y Social, CES) publishes a voluminous annual 'Report on the economic and labour situation' (Memoria sobre la situación socioeconómica y laboral), which is an essential reference work for industrial relations experts and professionals. In its evaluation of collective bargaining, the 2002 report, published in mid-2003, pays special attention to working time, which has been a central topic of collective agreements in recent years. Drawing on this report and other recent data, below we examine the latest trends in working time in Spain.

Guidelines for bargaining in 2002

Collective bargaining in 2002 was conducted within the framework established by an 'agreement for collective bargaining 2002' (Acuerdo para la Negociación Colectiva 2002, ANC 2002), laying down guidelines for lower-level bargaining, concluded by the central social partner organisations in December 2001 (ES0201207F). This agreement called for a greater effort to reorganise and manage working time in order to reconcile the needs of workers and companies. It also stated that employment growth depended on the management of working time, and that working time is linked to the use of production facilities and the improvement of productivity.

The ANC 2002 made two recommendations. The first was to implement agreements on the annualisation and flexible distribution of working time, including the conditions in which this must be carried out. The second was to limit overtime that is not strictly necessary. These positions reached by the social partners in the ANC 2002 fall within the tendency of recent years to regulate the more 'qualitative' aspects of distribution and organisation of working time through collective agreements (ES0305203F and ES0108157F).

Table 1 below shows the number of agreements concluded or revised in 2002, their scope and duration, and the proportion of all workers covered by collective agreements affected by them.

**Table 1. Collective agreements by scope and duration, 2002.**
Scope and duration	No. of agreements	% of agreements	No. of workers covered	% of workers covered
Total no. of agreements	4,217		7,808,123
Duration of 1 year	464	11.00%	654,777	8.40%
Duration of over 1 year	1,057	25.10%	1,624,918	20.80%
Revised	2,696	63.90%	5,528,428	70.80%
Company agreements	3,137		804,426
Duration of 1 year	335	10.70%	36,041	4.10%
Duration of over 1 year	768	24.50%	142,600	17.70%
Revised	2,034	64.8	625,785	77.80%
Agreements at other levels	1,080		7,003,697
Duration of 1 year	129	11.90%	618,736	8.80%
Duration of over 1 year	289	26.80%	1,482,318	21.20%
Revised	662	61.30%	4,902,643	70.00%

Source: Observatorio de Relaciones Industriales, Nº 62. June-July 2003.

Duration of working time

Collective bargaining has traditionally focused on the more 'quantitative' aspects of working time, such as annual working hours. Collective agreements show a general tendency towards setting shorter working hours - see table 2 below - though this tendency was broken between 1995 and 1998. In 2002, the average agreed working time was 1,757 hours 9 minutes per year, which is equivalent to 38.30 hours per week. This was 0.8 hours less on an annual basis than in the previous year. This reduction was mainly observed in company agreements, which showed an average annual reduction of 4.5 hours .

**Table 2. Average annual working time established in collective agreements, 1990-2002**
Year	Annual hours	Change on previous year
1990	1,769.7	-2.5
1991	1,758.0	-1.7
1992	1,755.6	-1.4
1993	1,753.5	-3.1
1994	1,763.4	-0.1
1995	1,756.9	2.5
1996	1,767.5	1.6
1997	1,767.8	0.3
1998	1,766.6	-1.2
1999	1,765.0	-1.6
2000	1,761.3	-3.7
2001	1,758.7	-2.6
2002	1,757.9	-0.8

Source: Agreements recorded up to May 2003, Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs statistics on collective agreements.

The agreements signed in 2002 with a period duration of over a year (see table 1 above) set the highest annual working time, with an average of 1,771.05 hours. The shortest working time was set by revised agreements, with an average of 1,752.73 hours per year. Sectoral agreements established an average annual working time of 1,753.9 hours which, as is habitual, was higher than the 1,703 hours 5 minutes set by company agreements. However, sectoral agreements show a tendency to move towards the average. In sectoral terms, agreed annual hours averaged 1,751 hours 38 minutes in services, 1,756 hours 36 minutes in construction and 1,760 hours 18 minutes in industry. Agriculture is still far behind, at 1,775 hours 54 minutes.

In company agreements, the larger the workforce of the company, the lower the agreed working time. Thus, in 2002:

in companies with over 500 workers, the average agreed annual working time was 1,694 hours;
in companies with 500-251 workers, the average agreed annual working time was 1,712 hours;
In companies with 101-250 workers, the average agreed annual working time was 1,717 hours;
in companies with 51-100 workers, the average agreed annual working time was 1,721 hours;
in companies with 26-50 workers, the average agreed annual working time was 1,737 hours;
in companies with six-25 workers, the average agreed annual working time was 1,742 hours; and
in companies with fewer than six workers, the average agreed annual working time was 1,764 hours.

However, it was in very small companies that working time was most reduced by collective agreements signed in 2002, with a reduction of 16 hours on an annual basis from the previous year.

Overtime

The reduction of overtime has been one of the trade unions' central bargaining policy issues (ES9907141F). However, the general amount of overtime worked continues to grow, which may be an indicator of a healthy economy, but also shows the unstable nature of certain types of employment such as temporary employment and part-time work.

In 2002 almost 63 million hours of overtime were worked, just over 7 million more than in the previous year - see table 3 below. It is estimated that the overtime worked in 2002 is equivalent to 35,650 full-time jobs

**Table 3. Overtime worked, 1993-2002**
Year	Total overtime hours (x 1,000)	Overtime hours per worker doing overtime	Overtime hours per full-time worker
1993	49,966.9	95.1	8.8
1994	53,606.1	95.9	9.7
1995	57,770.0	100.6	10.3
1996	64,550.2	107.7	11.5
1997	71,740.2	124.7	9.7
1998	67,105.4	108.5	8.5
1999	57,212.0	101.9	6.8
2000	58,818.5	100.1	6.7
2001	55,278.4	90.7	5.9
2002	62,959.1	103.8	6.7

Source: Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs, statistics on collective agreements.

Table 3 above highlights the growth in the number of overtime hours per worker doing overtime, and also the number of overtime hours per full-time worker. These figures had increased up until 1996/7 and then fell until 2001. However, they both rose in 2002 - in other words, despite the provisions of the ANC 2002 which aimed to limit overtime, it increased. In the collective agreements signed in 2002, the number of clauses on overtime remained stable in comparison with the previous year. Clauses to limit overtime appeared in 109 collective agreements and affected 121,811 workers in 2002, which was still only 2.6% of the total number of collective agreements and only 1.6% of the total of workers covered by collective agreements.

Reorganisation of working time

One of the important aspects covered by the recommendations of the ANC 2002 and included in collective agreements is the introduction of clauses on the reorganisation of working time. A first important aspect of this reorganisation is the calculation of working time. Article 34 of the Workers' Statute (Estatuto de los Trabajadores, ET), provides that the basis for the calculation of working time (eg daily, weekly, annual etc) should be laid down in the collective agreement or in the individual employment contract. The tendency is towards the increasing importance of annualised working time, particularly in company agreements. Of these, 68% provide for annualised calculation , 20% for weekly calculation, and 25% for a dual annual-weekly model.

The irregular distribution of working time over the year is another of the outstanding elements of the reorganisation of working time. Some 36% of collective agreements allow for irregular distribution of working time over the year or refer to the conclusions of specific agreements on this issue with the workers' representatives in the company or workplace. The number of workers affected by the irregular distribution of working time indicates the increasing importance of these clauses. No fewer than 3,602,948 workers are now covered by clauses on irregular distribution of working time. This is therefore one of the distinctive features of the reorganisation and flexibilisation of working time in order to adapt production capacity to variations in demand over the year; it is also an alternative to overtime.

The law provides for the possibility of modifying the statutory daily upper limit of nine hours of ordinary work through collective bargaining. This possibility appears in 7.64% of collective agreements and affects 17% of workers covered by collective bargaining. Another important element of the flexibilisation of working time is the accumulation of time off over periods of 14 days, which appears in 13.4% of agreements and affects 15.6% of workers

Commentary

The reorganisation of working time is a clear tendency in collective agreements. The justifications for making working time more flexible include the high amount of overtime that is currently performed, technical and organisation reasons, unscheduled needs, production needs, adaptation to market requirements, and the accumulation of tasks. However, another feature of this tendency is the erosion of the need to justify the introduction of flexible working time. There is also an emerging tendency to limit the abuse of the irregular distribution of working time through the creation of 'pools' of hours or annual limits on overtime.

The type of agreement on working time reduction and flexibility pioneered in 1993 at Volkswagen in Germany has been introduced in Spain as a model for reducing labour costs and financial costs. Recently, SEAT in Spain concluded an agreement along these lines (ES0306202N). Such agreements are emblematic of the new tendencies in working time. (Antonio Martin, QUIT-UAB)

Eurofound recommends citing this publication in the following way.

Eurofound (2003), Working time falling and becoming more flexible, article.