Collective Bargaining on Working Time: Recent European Experiences, edited by Maarten Keune and Bela Galgóczi, Brussels: ETUI-REHS, 2006, 290 pp., ISBN-10: 2-874520-14-4.

The relationships between work and time have become increasingly complex in recent decades, with shifts away from standard working hours, the growth in nonstandard employment, and an increased blurring of boundaries between work and non-work time definitive of new working time patterns. In particular, pressure for employer-oriented “flexibility”—through either demands for longer hours or increases in part-time and temporary employment contracts—is driving key working time transitions.

Working time has historically been a central issue around which unions organized and bargained collectively. In the 19^th century, unions in both North America and Western Europe organized to regulate the length of the working day. In the post-World War II era, collective bargaining contributed to the normalization of the standard workweek, with additional compensation for overtime hours, in unionized sectors of industrialized labour markets. Through the 1980s and 1990s, however, an employer-led offensive to restructure the organization of work placed labour movements on the defensive, and altered the context in which unions have sought to regulate working time. As the impacts of working time change are connected to job quality, employment security, and labour market equality, unions have struggled to use collective bargaining to redefine the way in which time is organized in the contemporary workplace.

The collection of reports contained in Collective Bargaining on Working Time: Recent European Experiences captures these tendencies, exploring both changing patterns in working time across European labour markets, as well as the ways in which European trade unions are attempting to re-regulate working time in order to increase workers’ control over their time at work and thereby improve their quality of life outside work. The book is a collection of 21 country reports, each outlining changing working time patterns, legislative provisions regulating working time, union policies on working time, and collective bargaining outcomes in recent years.

While the book is divided into individual country reports, several key themes run through the chapters. A primary theme is the widespread shift towards employer-oriented “flexibility.” In many countries this has manifested itself in employer attempts to gain greater control over in the organization of working time. Employers in Belgium, for example, have altered traditional bargaining patterns around working time by pressuring for higher levels of overtime and, like employers in Switzerland, have called for a longer normal work week. German employers have exerted great pressure in recent bargaining to increase weekly hours and to secure “opt-out” clauses in collective agreements. In Denmark, employers have pushed for a decentralization of the collective bargaining system, moving more negotiation to the company level, and have also pressured for greater flexibility in the averaging of weekly hours.

Another key theme in the text is the role of legislation in shaping the parameters of bargaining around working time. As neoliberalism has taken hold in many European parliaments, governments have increasingly sought to support employer-oriented “flexibility” initiatives. The U.K. serves as a key example, where the government has clearly signaled its intentions to counter “over-regulation,” for example by introducing the capacity for workers to “opt out” of weekly hours of work limits. There, working time legislation is further compromised by a weak enforcement regime. The implementation of the 35-hour workweek in France sits at the other end of the political spectrum. Nonetheless, legislative measures adopted since the election of a neoliberal government in 2002 have increased employers’ flexibility with respect to overtime hours, charting a path that brings France closer in line with tendencies elsewhere in Europe.

The movement towards “time flexibility” has manifested itself in collective agreements in recent years. For example, in Austria the collective agreement for the IT sector establishes provisions for daily and weekly flexibility, as well as annual “flexi-time accounts.” In Denmark, private and public sector provisions for averaging of weekly hours have been extended from six weeks to 12 months. At the same time, European unions have advanced their own working time agenda, ranging from pressure for reduced working time to advancing employee-oriented versions of working time “flexibility.” In Spain, unions have prioritized achieving a 35-hour workweek through collective bargaining, with real movement in this direction achieved in agreements negotiated between 2001-2004. In Finland, unions have sought to negotiate individual “time accounts,” which would enable workers to better coordinate their work and family life. In Switzerland, employer demands for “time flexibility” have been tempered by collective agreement clauses for worker consultation and veto rights over the implementation of employer requests. In the U.K., unions have sought to promote flex-time arrangements that are developed cooperatively between unions, managers and employees.

While there are common themes that run through the country reports, there is little in the way of overarching analysis that ties the text together. A thematic introductory chapter sets the tone nicely; however due to the large number of reports, the text feels simultaneously repetitive and disjointed. Instead of analyses of the trajectory of working time patterns, the implications for workers, and the strategies undertaken by European unions, the text simply presents a description of working hours, labour laws, and collective bargaining outcomes. This limits its readership to those who would be interested in technical description. Rather than a collection of short, individual country reports, the text may have been better organized as a series of thematic commentaries that could include, but not be limited to, country-specific case studies.

A key theme overlooked by the text is the intersecting inequalities associated with changing working time patterns. The book would have benefited a great deal by incorporating a gendered perspective on working time. While women’s labour market participation has increased dramatically over the past several decades, gendered inequality in the distribution of working time remains prevalent. Similarly, as migrants and immigrant workers are more likely to hold temporary employment contracts and be employed in occupations that are exempted from labour legislation, the text would have benefited from an analysis of the racialized dynamics of working time, a topic that is particularly pressing given the significance of labour migration within the European Union.

Nonetheless, Collective Bargaining on Working Time constitutes a strong reference source for those engaged in research on working time. The chapters are concise and very readable. The tables are well organized and provide data that could be compiled for more in-depth comparative analysis. And most importantly, the text serves as a strong reminder that the longstanding struggle over working time remains a key challenge for today’s trade unions.