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Regaining Control

By Iain Campbell

France's 35 hour week stems from the program of the Left coalition government which went to the polls in June 1997 with the policy of 'worksharing'.

The recent French regulatory initiatives are linked to the theme of the 35-hour week, as announced in two pieces of legislation introduced in 1998 and 1999. There is a vast literature in French related to these initiatives, and reports are also beginning to appear in English. I discuss the first piece of legislation and its intentions and consequences in a 1999 paper (Attachment H). Regular updates on subsequent developments by French experts can be found in English on Eironline (eg Bilous, 2000) and a small trickle of articles is beginning to appear in academic journals (eg Jefferys, 2000).

The French initiatives stem from the program of the Left coalition government, returned to office in the National Assembly elections in June 1997. A central promise was a renewed effort around 'worksharing', in which the government would legislate to reduce standard weekly working hours from 39 to 35 hours as a means of boosting employment and helping to cut unemployment. In announcing this promise, the government was able to draw on extensive academic research in France as well as the practical experience of almost twenty years of public policy, including the de Robien initiatives introduced by their political opponents in the mid-1990s. The French initiatives can be seen as part of a broader resurgence in interest in Europe in worksharing experiments (Bosch and Lehndorff, 2001).

A draft of the first piece of legislation was unveiled in October 1997, and a final version was passed in parliament and approved on 13 June 1998. The legislation applies to all private and public sector employees other than civil servants. The law has several elements, including some intended to bring France more closely into line with current European Directives (eg on daily rest breaks and the definition of part-time work). With respect to the central issue of the 35-hour week, the law announces a two-tiered schedule for its introduction - from 1 January 2000 in enterprises with more than 20 employees and from 1 January 2002 in enterprises with 20 or fewer employees. Drawing on the model of previous initiatives in France (and Belgium), the legislation offers generous financial incentives to eligible firms that reach a collective agreement with trade unions (or mandated employee representatives of trade unions) before these deadlines. Firms that reach a collective agreement to reduce working hours in order either to hire new workers ('offensive' agreement) or to preserve threatened jobs ('defensive' agreement) are entitled to significant reductions in their social security contributions.

The first law left several issues in abeyance, with the expectation that these would be dealt with in the course of collective bargaining, either at industry or plant level, and then, after a review of progress, in a second law planned for late 1999. A busy program of collective negotiations took place in 1998 and 1999. Lured by the carrot of subsidies - and conscious of the stick of imposed reductions in the near future - many firms undertook negotiations with unions (or mandated representatives) in order to introduce working-time reductions.

A second piece of legislation, which sought to fix the form of compulsory working-time reductions, was presented in late 1999 and then adopted in January 2000. The law is complex. I focus here only on the main points, as they appeared from the vantage point of mid-2001.

The law announced a new statutory working week of 35 hours, to come into effect from February 1st 2000 (from January 1st 2002 for smaller firms). A modified package of assistance is offered to those firms who are still able to reach an appropriate agreement. Moreover, to ease the alleged burden on individual enterprises, the law announces a transition period of 12 months, during which overtime, ie hours above the weekly standard, is made more flexible both in terms of its permissible volume and in terms of its premia. Only after the completion of the transition period do the standard controls on overtime - a cap in most cases of 130 hours per annum, with premia of time and a quarter for the first few hours and then time and a half afterwards - come into play. The law amends the definition of 'actual working time' in order to clear up some of the confusion around phenomena such as training, travel time and on-call arrangements. In addition, it clarifies what is permissible with averaging arrangements (eg ensuring that 35 is the average and that workers are given 7 days notice of all variation). The law finesses the tricky issue of the SMIC minimum wage by retaining the hourly wage rate but adding a supplement to ensure that the weekly wages of the sizeable minority (around 8 percent) of employees who are paid the SMIC do not fall as their weekly working hours fall.

The law preserves and fine-tunes much of the traditional working-time regulation that restricts extended hours in France. This regulation is relatively comprehensive. In addition to a definition of standard hours (35 weekly and sometimes defined as 1600 annually) and the prescription that extra hours above the standard should be compensated with either money or time at a set premium, the regulatory system incorporates various maximum limits on working-time duration. As well as the cap on overtime (130 hours per annum for most workers, 90 per annum for those under averaging arrangements), there are maximum daily hours (10 in most circumstances) and maximum weekly hours (48 in most circumstances and never more than 60).

As noted above, France is one of the countries in which it has been possible to detect a small increase in the proportion of employees working extended hours in the last twenty years. This is usually identified with the work of managers (cadres), and research has recently begun to look at work organization and working time for managers (Boulin and Plasman, 1997; Bouffartigue and Bouteiller, 2001). One interesting aspect of the recent legislation is its effort to deal with working hours of managerial staff. The law divides managers into three categories. At the top are 'executive managers' (cadre dirigeant), who are seen as completely independent in the organization of their working time and who are given exemption from most working-time regulation (though they do have paid holidays and maternity leave). At the other end are managers who are seen as integrated into the work organization, working on regular working-time schedules together with other employees. Such managers are subject to the provisions of collective agreements governing working-time reductions. The most interesting is the third category, seen as intermediate to the other two. The legislation attempts to ensure working-time reductions for such employees but in a way adapted to their style of working. For those managers whose work cannot be calculated in hours and who enjoy a great deal of autonomy in their work, the law seeks to ensure reductions in the form of extra days off - around 10 per year. Such employees do not have to abide by daily or weekly maxima but must not work more than 217 days per year (ie 47 weeks of 5 days less 8 days for statutory public holidays less the 10 extra days). This picks up on research in many countries showing that such employees often want reduced working hours but would prefer them in the form of blocks of additional time off.

The regulatory initiatives summarized here were fiercely opposed by the main employers' association (CNPF, now MEDEF), whose president denounced the initial proposal as a 'scandal' and resigned in protest. The MEDEF argued that it interfered with the proper role of the social partners and that it would be ineffective in employment terms and would harm the competitiveness of individual enterprises. Most recently, MEDEF have called for a moratorium on the introduction of the 35 hour week in smaller enterprises. The major trade union federations varied in enthusiasm for the initiatives. This partly depended on their attitude to the trade-offs that were encouraged in the collective negotiations (eg flexibility and wage moderation). In the most recent period they have been occupied by the emerging debate around the new provisions for trade union representation (and by the broader debate on the future of collective bargaining initiated by the employers).

The regulatory initiatives are unfinished. The reductions have not yet been introduced into smaller enterprises with less than twenty employees (though it was estimated by the Ministry for Employment and Solidarity in January that 40 percent of enterprises with fewer than 20 had already switched to the 35-hour week - Eironline 2001). Moreover, the regulations are not fully in place (in particular, the provisions for managerial staff have been the subject of legal action before the Supreme Court and the European Court).

In June 2001, a tripartite committee composed of experts and representatives of the state, trade unions and employer associations (but not MEDEF) delivered a report that sought to assess the experience of the initiatives at what they suggest is the 'halfway stage'. The report is mainly positive (Rouilleault, 2001; for a summary in English see Freyssinet, 2001). In terms of the main aim of employment creation (or protection) it offers an estimate of some 265,000 new jobs so far, with half a million expected by the end of the process. The subsidiary aim of encouraging collective bargaining has also clearly been met, with strong bursts of negotiations and agreements evident throughout 1998, 1999 and 2000. The report emphasizes that the pessimistic prognoses of some critics that the initiatives would damage competitiveness have been dashed. Indeed there have been benefits for firms as a result of productivity offsets. The reductions have been achieved smoothly without lowering monthly pay or negative impacts on firms' competitiveness. The broader picture of employee welfare is a little mixed. Employee surveys indicate that the vast majority feels that the quality of life has improved, but many complain about more irregular schedules as well as increased workloads and intensification.

The French initiatives of course have failings. The tripartite report notes a few areas for action, including a need to simplify some of the provisions (eg re the minimum wage). The efforts to design working-time reductions for managers are interesting, but it would be wrong to describe them as fully successful. The unions have been highly critical, arguing that the provisions for intermediate managers can in fact open the way for longer daily and weekly hours. Nevertheless, the initiatives offer useful lessons for Australia.

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  Issue 116 contents

»	Unions Triumph in Bra Battle
»	Ansett's Redundancy Edict: Hand in Uniforms
»	Economic Management Libs Style: Porkbarrelling And Profligacy
»	Long Hours Ranks Swell
»	Extra Security Urged at Chemical Sites
»	Regional Airport Security Ignored By Anderson
»	"Sack or Back" Shier
»	Backpay For Exploited Guest Workers
»	Nurses to Test New Equal Pay Laws
»	Libs Back Unions as Compo Police
»	Racism Rocks Workplaces
»	Community of Sydney to Back CFMEU
»	Green Activist Restrictions Lifted
»	Hotel Union Cautious About Employer Gloom
»	International Workers to Converge on Sydney
»	Workers' Bank Opens Shopfront
»	Face The Music And Shove It Up The Junta!
»	Activists Notebook

»	The Soapbox
»	The Locker Room
»	Trades Hall
»	Tool Shed

»	Joy is at it Again!
»	The Extra Yards
»	Water Aid
»	Redunancy Under Attack
»	Orwell No Anarchist
»	Ways Around Treaty Rights

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