Coalition promise: dispute over working hours – employer president for reform

Employer president Rainer Dulger calls for a quick reform of the Working Hours Act in Germany with a flexibility of working hours. Dulger told the German Press Agency: “A weekly maximum working time fits better into the age of digitization than the strict daily maximum working hours. We finally need that in Germany too.”

Dulger: Regulations outdated

Working time legislation in Germany comes from the time of Telex and the election, said the President of the Federal Association of German Employers’ Associations (BDA). The possibilities of the EU working time directive should be fully exploited.

“There is no such thing for a roofer or a worker on the assembly line. “It is best for me if the employer and unions agree with each other, and the legislator accompanies this through a suitable legal framework. It is important that we, as a social partner, continue to keep all the tariff freedom, for example through opening clauses.” That has proven itself very much in the past.

“In other jobs, employees want to be more flexible, maybe get the child from the daycare center at 4 p.m., then write two emails at 8 p.m. – and then be able to be in the office the next morning at 7 or 8 a.m.,” said Dulger. “This is currently not possible because you do not comply with the rest periods. I want the legal framework to allow more flexibility even in rest times that we fill with our social partners. It is not about grinding the eight -hour day and letting it work for 13 hours a day. This is nonsense.”

The law stipulates that the daily working hours of employees must not exceed eight hours. Under certain conditions, it can be extended to up to ten hours. After completing the daily working hours, employees must have an uninterrupted rest period of at least eleven hours – a shortening to ten hours is possible under conditions, for example in hospitals, in transport companies or restaurants. Different regulations are also possible through collective agreements.

The Union and SPD coalition agreement states that the world of work is changing. Employees and companies wanted more flexibility. “That is why we want to create the possibility of a weekly instead of a daily maximum working time – also and especially in the sense of better reconciling family and work.” There should be a dialogue with the social partners to design.

Unions reject reform

This social partner dialogue on the Working Hours Act started last week. The unions reject a change from a daily to a weekly maximum working time. The DGB chairman Yasmin Fahimi said that the regular eight-hour day was completely over the reality of the employees. Even today, people in Germany worked numerous overtime, many of them unpaid. The social partners already agreed flexible working hours in thousands of collective agreements. The working time law in its current form offers sufficient scope for this.

In a short study of the Hugo Sinzheim Institute for Labor Law of the Hans-Böckler Foundation, which was submitted in May, the Federal Government’s project would allow daily maximum daily hours of over more than twelve hours-but overwhelming working hours at risk.