Social Europe

politics, economy and employment & labour

  • Themes
    • Global cities
    • Strategic autonomy
    • War in Ukraine
    • European digital sphere
    • Recovery and resilience
  • Publications
    • Books
    • Dossiers
    • Occasional Papers
    • Research Essays
    • Brexit Paper Series
  • Podcast
  • Videos
  • Newsletter
  • Membership

Ars Longa, Vita Brevis: Key Role Of Collective Bargaining In Establishing EU Working Time Standards

Jorge Cabrita 1st March 2016

Jorge Cabrita

Jorge Cabrita

Nowadays we all know that long or excessive working hours may have serious negative impacts on a person’s health and wellbeing. Eurofound‘s new report “Working time developments in the 21st century” suggests that if working time standards are mainly left to legislation or to be set unilaterally by employers, people will still tend to work longer hours. On the contrary, if the working time standards are negotiated through collective bargaining, the likely negative impact is less as people tend to work fewer hours on average.

It is exactly in recognition of those likely negative impacts on the health and wellbeing of workers that the European Working Time Directive came into being in 1993 through Council Directive 93/104/EC (as amended by the Directive 2000/34/EC) and consolidated ten years later by Directive 2003/88/EC. It aims at guaranteeing minimum safety and health requirements for the organisation of working time by setting ‘minimum’ standards for working hours as well as ensuring that workers do not have to work excessive hours and are entitled to adequate rest and holidays. In attaining that objective, social partners can (and do!) have a very important role: in transposing the directive EU Member States don’t just introduce laws, regulations or other administrative provisions, they can also promote the application of collective agreements that are more favourable to the protection of workers’ health and safety.

In the EU member states, working time is regulated via different combinations of legislation and multi-layered collective bargaining and negotiations. Eurofound recently carried out a study looking at any changes in those national settings during the 15 years and focusing essentially on the settings applicable to the duration of work for full-time employees. We have identified four main working time setting regimes (see Figure 1 for a geographical representation):

  • Pure mandated: Statutory legislation covers the majority of workers; collective bargaining and agreements covering working time duration or organisation are rare in this regime.
  • Adjusted mandated: Legislation plays a dominant role in regulating working time standards, but these are often adjusted through collective bargaining or negotiations at different levels.
  • Negotiated: Standards are set mainly by collective bargaining agreements, usually at sectoral level; such agreements may be complemented by company-level bargaining on working time organisation issues.
  • Unilateral: Statutory legislation plays hardly any role in the definition of working time standards and bargaining structures are highly decentralised; working time duration and organisation are usually stated in individual employment contracts, and tend to reflect the conditions determined and offered by employers.

Figure 1 – Working time setting regimes in the EU

worktime1Source: Information from Eurofound’s network of European correspondents (2014-2015).

The findings show that more than two-thirds of Member States have an adjusted mandated or a negotiated working time setting regime, both of which imply the direct participation of social partners in how working time is defined. The eight Member States characterised by purely mandated regimes are all central and eastern European countries which joined the EU in or after 2004 (EU-13) and where collective bargaining structures are still evolving.

The working time setting regimes in the EU have remained essentially unchanged for the past 15 years and, in that context, the role of social partners in the definition of working time standards is essentially unchanged too. It is important to underline that this role appears decisive for the number of hours that workers usually work: these tend to be shorter in countries with negotiated or adjusted mandated regimes, and longer in the pure mandated and unilateral regimes (see Figure 2).


Become part of our Community of Thought Leaders


Get fresh perspectives delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up for our newsletter to receive thought-provoking opinion articles and expert analysis on the most pressing political, economic and social issues of our time. Join our community of engaged readers and be a part of the conversation.

Sign up here

Figure 2 – Average usual weekly working hours in the EU by working time setting regime

worktime2Source: Eurostat, Labour force survey, Eurofound calculations.

It seems that usual weekly working hours tend to be shorter where working time standards are predominantly defined through collective agreements. In other words, this means that collective bargaining over working time standards – in particular over working time duration – may have a sort of ‘cushion’ effect on working hours actually performed by workers. Furthermore, it seems clear that if working hours setting is mainly left to the employers, as in the unilateral regime of the UK, then actual working hours tend to be significantly longer. That is why Eurofound’s report underlines that if the definition of working time standards is put in terms of workers’ health and safety, the involvement of social partners is essential given the positive association of collective bargaining with shorter working hours and, therefore, a reduced impact of work on workers’ health and wellbeing.

Working time must, however, also be considered in terms of its organisation, which includes aspects such as regularity (same hours every day, same days every week, etc.), atypicality (working nights, weekends, very long working days, etc.), and flexibility (of starting and ending times, schedules, etc.) to fit in with the needs of both workers and organisations, which can be an extremely difficult task as those needs are typically divergent. But here again, social partners, as the collective representatives of employers and workers, can have a very important role in matching the needs of both and striking a balance which is beneficial for all.

The report “Working time developments in the 21st Century” is now available from Eurofound.

Jorge Cabrita

Jorge Cabrita is Research manager in Eurofound’s Working Life Unit, responsible for formulating, coordinating and managing European-wide studies, surveys, publications and other Eurofound projects in the thematic areas of working conditions and industrial relations.

You are here: Home / Politics / Ars Longa, Vita Brevis: Key Role Of Collective Bargaining In Establishing EU Working Time Standards

Most Popular Posts

Russia,information war Russia is winning the information warAiste Merfeldaite
Nanterre,police Nanterre and the suburbs: the lid comes offJoseph Downing
Russia,nuclear Russia’s dangerous nuclear consensusAna Palacio
Belarus,Lithuania A tale of two countries: Belarus and LithuaniaThorvaldur Gylfason and Eduard Hochreiter
retirement,Finland,ageing,pension,reform Late retirement: possible for many, not for allKati Kuitto

Most Recent Posts

Vienna,social housing Vienna social-housing model—celebrated but misusedGabu Heindl
social democracy,nation-state Social democracy versus the nativist rightJan Zielonka
chemical,European Union Which comes first—Big Toxics’ profits or health?Vicky Cann
Russia,journalists,Ukraine,target Ukraine: journalists in Russia’s sightsKelly Bjorkland and Simon Smith
European Union,enlargement,Balkans EU enlargement—back to the futureEmilija Tudzarovska

Other Social Europe Publications

strategic autonomy Strategic autonomy
Bildschirmfoto 2023 05 08 um 21.36.25 scaled 1 RE No. 13: Failed Market Approaches to Long-Term Care
front cover Towards a social-democratic century?
Cover e1655225066994 National recovery and resilience plans
Untitled design The transatlantic relationship

Eurofound advertisement

Eurofound Talks: housing

In this episode of the Eurofound Talks podcast, Mary McCaughey speaks with Eurofound’s senior research manager, Hans Dubois, about the issues that feed into housing insecurity in Europe and the actions that need to be taken to address them. Together, they analyse findings from Eurofound’s recent Unaffordable and inadequate housing in Europe report, which presents data from Eurofound’s Living, working and COVID-19 e-survey, European Union Statistics on Income and Living Conditions and input from the Network of Eurofound Correspondents on various indicators of housing security and living conditions.


LISTEN HERE

Foundation for European Progressive Studies Advertisement

The summer issue of the Progressive Post magazine by FEPS is out!

The Special Coverage of this new edition is dedicated to the importance of biodiversity, not only as a good in itself but also for the very existence of humankind. We need a paradigm change in the mostly utilitarian relation humans have with nature.

In this issue, we also look at the hazards of unregulated artificial intelligence, explore the shortcomings of the EU's approach to migration and asylum management, and analyse the social downside of the EU's current ethnically-focused Roma policy.


DOWNLOAD HERE

Hans Böckler Stiftung Advertisement

WSI European Collective Bargaining Report 2022 / 2023

With real wages falling by 4 per cent in 2022, workers in the European Union suffered an unprecedented loss in purchasing power. The reason for this was the rapid increase in consumer prices, behind which nominal wage growth fell significantly. Meanwhile, inflation is no longer driven by energy import prices, but by domestic factors. The increased profit margins of companies are a major reason for persistent inflation. In this difficult environment, trade unions are faced with the challenge of securing real wages—and companies have the responsibility of making their contribution to returning to the path of political stability by reducing excess profits.


DOWNLOAD HERE

ETUI advertisement

The future of remote work

The 12 chapters collected in this volume provide a multidisciplinary perspective on the impact and the future trajectories of remote work, from the nexus between the location from where work is performed and how it is performed to how remote locations may affect the way work is managed and organised, as well as the applicability of existing legislation. Additional questions concern remote work’s environmental and social impact and the rapidly changing nature of the relationship between work and life.


AVAILABLE HERE

About Social Europe

Our Mission

Article Submission

Membership

Advertisements

Legal Disclosure

Privacy Policy

Copyright

Social Europe ISSN 2628-7641

Social Europe Archives

Search Social Europe

Themes Archive

Politics Archive

Economy Archive

Society Archive

Ecology Archive

Follow us

RSS Feed

Follow us on Facebook

Follow us on Twitter

Follow us on LinkedIn

Follow us on YouTube