Decent Working Time

by Boulin, Jean-yves; Lallement, Michael; Messenger, Jon C.; Michon, Francois

• ISBN13: 9789221179504
• ISBN10: 9221179508
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2007-05-01
• Publisher: Intl Labour Organisation

Summary

Including international comparative analysis alongside national case studies, this volume offers a wealth of information on the new trends which have emerged over the past decades - all of which were discussed at the recent 9th International Symposium on Working Time, Paris (2004). It looks at the increasing use of results-based employment relationships for managers and professionals, and the increasing fragmentation of time to more closely tailor staffing needs to customer requirements (e.g., short-hours, part-time work). Moreover, as operating/opening hours rapidly expand toward a 24-hour and 7-day economy, the book considers how this has resulted in a growing diversification, decentralization, and individualization of working hours, as well as an increasing tension between enterprises' business requirements and workers' needs and preferences regarding their hours. This new reality has raised some other challenging issues as well and the volume addresses those such as increasing employment insecurity and instability, time-related social inequalities, particularly in relation to gender, workers' ability to balance their paid work with their personal lives, and even the synchronization of working hours with social times, such as community activities.

Table of Contents

Foreword	p. v
Contents	p. ix
Acknowledgements	p. xxi
Introduction	p. 1
New Stakes and Policies	p. 11
Decent working time in industrialized countries: Issues, scopes and paradoxes	p. 13
Introduction	p. 13
Working time: Issues and policies over the last decades	p. 14
From decent work to decent working time	p. 20
"Decent work"	p. 21
Time and "decent work"	p. 25
Paradox and contradictions of policies today	p. 28
Working time policies in Europe: Paradoxical precepts	p. 28
Current trends in working time and decent working time	p. 31
Reconfiguring working time policies based on the concept of decent working time	p. 34
Working time and the Standard employment relationship	p. 41
Introduction	p. 41
The definition and function of the SER	p. 43
The evolution of the SER in the EU	p. 47
The causes of the change in the SER	p. 51
Approaches to a new, flexible SER	p. 57
Working time capability: Towards realizing individual choice	p. 65
Introduction	p. 65
The capabilities approach and working time	p. 67
Working time preferences and capabilities	p. 70
Working time capability, social rights and worker-choice laws	p. 78
Towards advancing working time capability through worker-choice measures: Some policy considerations	p. 82
Decent working time in a life-course perspective	p. 93
Introduction	p. 93
The relevance of a new organization of work throughout the life course	p. 96
Changes that foster the need for a new organization of time throughout the life course	p. 98
The emergence of life-course policies in Europe	p. 99
Life-course profiles: A cross-national comparison	p. 101
Gender disparities in the patterns of labour market integration and working time arrangements over the life course	p. 102
Empirical evidence of the emergence of a life-course perspective in time policies	p. 109
Trends at the institutional level	p. 110
Firms tend to limit the use of WTOs to parenthood and exit from the labour market	p. 113
Conditions for implementing a new organization of time over the life course	p. 115
Conditions related to the social protection system	p. 116
The new organization of time over the life course as part of the employment dynamic and as a device for enhancing social cohesion	p. 118
Conclusion	p. 120
Time, work and pay: Understanding the new relationships	p. 123
Introduction	p. 123
Reconstituting the employment relationship: The impact of working time changes	p. 124
Exploring the processes of working time change	p. 127
Employment relations and new working time arrangements	p. 129
Organizational and workplace drivers for new working time arrangements	p. 135
Employee compliance: How employers succeeded in implementing the new working time practices	p. 141
Conclusion	p. 144
Appendix	p. 146
Individual Choices and Collective Options	p. 153
Labour supply preferences and job mobility of Dutch employees	p. 155
Introduction	p. 155
The Dutch labour market in international perspective	p. 156
A right to change the number of working hours	p. 159
Previous research	p. 160
Model and data	p. 162
Modelling the effect of the Adjustment of Working Hours Act	p. 163
Working hours preferences	p. 164
Changes in working hours	p. 166
Reducing labour supply	p. 166
Increasing labour supply	p. 171
Conclusion	p. 173
Policy implications	p. 174
Probit models for the decrease and increase in working hours	p. 176
Selection equation	p. 177
The French 35-hour week: A decent working time pattern? Lessons from case studies	p. 181
Introduction	p. 181
Reduction of working time - a lever for improving decent working time?	p. 181
The Aubry laws - public controversy and corporate compromise	p. 182
Reduced time and combining the components of decent working time	p. 185
Imperfect bargaining conditions	p. 187
Negotiations on the employers' initiative	p. 189
Negotiations with numerous constraints	p. 189
Negotiating issues: Work rather than employment	p. 191
From rules to practice	p. 192
Compromises and adjustments of standards, negotiated in conditions of economic uncertainty	p. 193
Managerial logic and management measures as sources of tension for employees	p. 195
The contingent nature of decent working time practices and patterns	p. 197
Subjective working time preferences: A complex interpretation	p. 198
Perceptions of working time in the four companies: A situational perspective	p. 200
Aspects of decent working time	p. 201
The conditions of decent working time	p. 203
Decent working time and decent pay	p. 203
Decent working time and staff cohesion	p. 204
Decent working time and stable rules	p. 205
Conclusion	p. 205
Overemployment in the United States: Which workers are willing to reduce their work-hours and income?	p. 209
Introduction	p. 209
Measuring overemployment	p. 210
Refining the concept of overemployment	p. 215
Overemployment at the microeconomic level	p. 215
Overemployment at the macroeconomic level	p. 216
Explaining the rise and fall of overemployment as a dynamic labour supply process	p. 217
Hypotheses	p. 222
Empirical findings: Demographic characteristics of over-employment	p. 223
Findings: Work-hours and job status characteristics	p. 226
Job characteristics: Occupations and industries	p. 227
Summary and implications of the results: Towards decent working time policies	p. 228
Women's preferences or delineated policies? The development of part-time work in the Netherlands, Germany and the United Kingdom	p. 235
Introduction	p. 235
General developments	p. 238
The Netherlands	p. 242
Germany and the United Kingdom	p. 245
Germany	p. 246
United Kingdom	p. 251
Conclusion	p. 256
Flexibilities and Conditions of Work	p. 263
The working conditions of blue-collar and white-collar worker's in France compared: A question of time	p. 265
Introduction	p. 265
Employment and working conditions of unskilled white-collar workers in France	p. 267
Some methodological preliminaries	p. 267
Employment conditions and pay	p. 270
Working conditions characteristic of a changing labour market	p. 273
A change in the nature of working conditions	p. 274
Unskilled white-collar workers and temporal availability	p. 278
The need to go beyond statistical analysis, or the importance of interviews in identifying temporal availability	p. 278
The forms of temporal availability	p. 279
Specific forms of temporal availability	p. 280
The five dimensions of "decent working time"	p. 283
Part-time work in services and "decent working time"	p. 283
Conclusion	p. 285
Managers and working time in Finland	p. 289
Introduction	p. 289
The changing working time regime and decent working time	p. 289
Working hours in Finland	p. 290
Managerial work and working time	p. 291
Knowledge workers as forerunners of the changing working time regime: Threat or opportunity for decent working time?	p. 292
Factors behind long working hours	p. 294
Preferred hours	p. 295
Aims and study approach	p. 297
Methods	p. 297
Participants and procedure	p. 297
Results	p. 298
Blurring working hours	p. 298
Long working hours	p. 301
Reasons for stretching working hours	p. 303
Preferred working hours	p. 306
Discussion	p. 309
Sample attrition analysis	p. 313
Can norms survive market pressures? The practical effectiveness of new forms of working time regulation in a changing German economy	p. 319
Introduction: Flexibilization and erosion	p. 319
Working time regulation and changes in production systems	p. 321
The characteristics of new forms of working time regulation - the case studies	p. 326
The practical effectiveness of working time regulatory systems	p. 330
The change in the function of flexi-time	p. 330
The dominance of paid overtime	p. 331
The forfeiture of working time	p. 332
The withdrawal of time credits from long-term accounts	p. 334
Individualized bargaining	p. 335
The anchor role of co-determination	p. 336
Conclusion	p. 337
Quality, Efficiency and Inequalities	p. 343
Time management in a service economy: The case of Japan	p. 345
Introduction	p. 345
Age as a key factor in societal conventions on pay, the family and temporal availability	p. 346
Some empirical data on temporal availability in Japan and its evolution	p. 349
Working time	p. 349
Domestic time	p. 352
The three conventions: Structural or marginal changes?	p. 357
Limited individualization of life histories	p. 357
Conventions on availability and welfare and competency regimes	p. 359
Conclusion	p. 364
Two occupational groups facing the challenge of temporal availability: Hospital nurses and bank managerial staff in France, Belgium and Spain	p. 369
Introduction	p. 369
A multi-level approach	p. 370
Three national contexts	p. 372
Statistical overview	p. 372
Formalized regulation of working time	p. 374
Female hospital nurses	p. 374
France	p. 378
Belgium	p. 380
Spain	p. 381
Comparative remarks	p. 383
Bank managers	p. 383
France	p. 384
Belgium	p. 386
Spain	p. 387
Comparative remarks	p. 389
Conclusion	p. 390
Who is working at weekends? Determinants of regular weekend work in Canada	p. 395
Introduction	p. 395
The context, theoretical background and factors associated with weekend work	p. 397
Methodology	p. 400
Characteristics of the workers	p. 404
Percentage of workers in regular weekend work	p. 404
Multivariate analysis results	p. 408
Summary and conclusion	p. 412
Conclusion	p. 417
Towards decent working time	p. 419
Background	p. 419
Healthy working time	p. 420
"Family-friendly" working time	p. 423
Gender equality through working time	p. 427
Productive working time	p. 430
Choice and influence regarding working time	p. 433
Future directions	p. 436
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