35-hour workweek
From Free net encyclopedia
The 35-hour working week is a measure adopted first in France, in February 2000, under Prime Minister Lionel Jospin's administration; it was pushed by then Minister of Labour Martine Aubry. The previous legal duration of the workweek was 39 hours. The 35 hours is not an absolute limit, but any further working time is to be considered overtime. The law has since been substantially weakened.
Contents |
Rationale
(See working time for further discussion of the health and leisure-related reasons for many nations to consider limited working weeks important.)
The main stated objectives of the law were twofold:
- To reduce unemployment and yield a better repartition of work, in a context where some people work long hours while some others are unemployed. A 10.2% decrease in the hours extracted from each worker would, theoretically, require firms to hire correspondingly more workers, a remedy for unemployment.
- To take advantage of improvements in productivity of modern society in order to give workers some more personal time in order to enhance their quality of life.
Another reason was that the Jospin administration took advantage of the changes introduced with the 35-hour working week in order to relax other workforce legislation.
Criticism
The 35-hour working week is highly controversial in France. Generally speaking, left-wing parties and labour unions support it, while right-wing parties and the MEDEF employers' union oppose it. Critics of the 35-hour workweek have argued that it has failed to serve its purpose because an increase in recruitment has not occurred. According to them, firms, being stubbornly against hiring new workers, have instead simply increased per-hour production quotas. According to right-wing parties and economic commentators, French firms avoid hiring new workers in general because French work force regulations make it difficult to lay off workers during a poor economic period.
The right-wing Raffarin administration also partially blamed the deaths during the heat wave of August 2003 on the 35-hour workweek; according to them, public hospitals were inadequately staffed to handle the number of patients because of the workweek law. The opposition has charged that Raffarin simply tries to lay the blame for his shortcomings and those of health minister Jean-François Mattei on others.
For an economic critique of the idea see lump of labour fallacy.
Amendments to the law
The Raffarin administration, of which some members are vocal critics of the law, has gradually pushed for further relaxation of the legal working time requirements. On December 22, 2004, the French Parliament extended the maximum number of overtime hours per year from 180 to 220; on March 31, 2005, another law extended the possibilities of overtime hours.