Worklife
Relax!
(and Uphold Global
Labor Standards)
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Photo: ©Maria
Dumlao, Impact Visuals |
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Having to work overtime is a crime. But in France,
it’s a crime employers are actually being prosecuted for, facing
fines and even jail time. Come 2000, the government crackdown on
overtime violators will probably have to intensify. That’s when
France’s newly legislated 35-hour workweek is scheduled to go
into effect.
With their short workweek and nationally mandated
five weeks of paid vacation (not to mention four to seven weeks of
paid parental leave), French workers are leaving Americans in the
dust when it comes to living the good life.
But the 35-hour week isn’t just about kicking
back. France is facing an unemployment rate of 11 percent. Thanks
to income protections French workers have won, being unemployed
isn’t as dire in France as it is in the U.S. Still, it’s a
problem. So last summer, France’s National Assembly decided to
spread the work around by requiring all employers with over 20
workers to reduce the workweek from its present 39 hours to 35
hours a week — with no change in pay. Violators will be
prosecuted.
Already, France has stepped up enforcement of
overtime laws. Hundreds of labor inspectors are sniffing around
workplaces, looking for evidence of overtime perps, like too many
cars in a parking lot. The French press reports that some
overeager workers are smuggling laptops home under their raincoats
so they can keep working without triggering a legal proceeding.
Let’s Make a Study of
It
To John Vellardita, president of PACE Local
10-1202 in Madison, Wisconsin, all this has great appeal. So much
so that he recently made a trip to Paris to study the 35-hour-week
law. He explains that his members, who work for Rock-Tenn, a paper
packaging company, are being pressured to accept grueling 12-hour
shifts. "It’s the employer’s solution to
overcapacity," he says. "But it wreaks havoc on peoples’
lives." More and more industrial workers are being forced
into 12-hour shifts, as employers move to continuous 24-hour
production (broken into three 12-hour stints). Vellardita notes
that while some workers, especially younger ones, agree willingly
to 12-hour shifts because they offer a 3-day weekend, others
accept the long weekdays out of fear that if they don’t, their
plant will be closed. Vellardita would rather see his members work
shorter, saner hours — like the French.
The U.S., of course, doesn’t currently face the
soaring unemployment levels the French do. However, Vellardita
points out, "We’re still seeing an incredible loss of
industrial jobs. Plants are closing down all over, and it’s not
because we’re producing less. We’re producing more, and yet we’re
seeing a loss of jobs and union members." Why not reduce the
workweek and hire more workers, rather than force fewer and fewer
into back-breaking overtime? Vellardita says the French workers he’s
spoken to "are amazed that shorter work time isn’t a major
issue in the U.S."
Americans Work Too Hard
The average full-time worker in this country now
works a 44-hour week, and many work much more. Overtime represents
about 20 percent of the total time worked by autoworkers these
days. The issue of overtime has emerged in this summer’s
contract talks between the United Auto Workers and the big three
automakers. UAW president Stephen Yokich has argued that some
86,000 auto jobs would open up if the automakers stopped the
overtime. A shorter workweek would net even more jobs.
The French government recently calculated that
56,767 jobs have already been saved since the 35-hour workweek law
was passed a year ago. On average, the employment ministry
announced, the new law has created or saved some 5 percent of jobs
and increased productivity by 3 percent. (It’s well-documented
that people work more efficiently and safely when the workday is
short.)
The savings are showing up even before the law
goes into effect because unions are already negotiating contracts
based on it. In fact, the government is providing financial
incentives for companies that cut the workweek and take on more
workers in advance of the 2000 deadline. Companies with fewer than
20 workers will have until 2002 to comply with the new law.
In January, French utility workers won a new
contract that calls for a 35-hour workweek and encourages each
work unit to consider a 32-hour, four-day workweek at 97.1 percent
of full pay. The union also got French electric and gas utilities
to agree to take on an extra 20,000 young workers over the next
three years. Since only about 15,000 utility workers are due to
retire over that period, the agreement will net an extra 5,000
jobs.
French employers have generally opposed the new
law, warning that it will cause capital flight. U.S.-owned
companies, which employ some 1.6 million French workers, have been
the most vociferous. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce has even
threatened French business and government that strict enforcement
of the 35-hour week could deter U.S. investment.
Bottom of the Heap!
Obviously, to maintain global working standards,
the rest of the industrialized world is going to have to catch up
with the French. The European Confederation of Trade Unions has
stressed its support for a 35-hour workweek Europe-wide. Spain is
already moving in that direction. Belgium is debating some pilot
projects to reduce work-time, including one plan in which the
government would help employers finance a cut from 38 to 32 hours
by allowing them to pay reduced social security contributions for
six years. Some unionists feel the plan is too generous to
employers.
American workers are at the bottom of the heap in
the industrialized world, with our unenforced 40-hour workweek and
an average vacation length of 9.3 days (that’s even averaging in
workers with lots of seniority and unionized workers who have won
more!)
Meanwhile, back in Paris, reports UE’s European
correspondent Jeff Apter, people are at the height of the summer
siesta. Most people take a big chunk of their five-week legally
mandated vacations in August. "People go to the coastline,
the mountains," he says. "Things pretty much shut down
in August."
—Laura McClure
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