Denis Langlet: New French "35-Hour Work Week"

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New French "35-Hour Work Week" - An Example of Deregulation

Report from Denis Langlet, French metalworker unionist, on the new French "35-hour workweek

Introductory Note:

Articles have appeared here and there in the British press singing the praises of a law recently introduced in France by the Jospin government, with the support of all its component parts (the French "pluralist left" government is made up of ministers drawn from the Socialist Party, the Communists and the Greens).

Reading the press would also lead us to believe that never before has a new law resulted in so many strikes.

So the law, which reduces the working week to 35 hours, is presented as being a progressive step, but at the same time is supposed to have provoked several strikes, in the private sector as well as in the public sector.

A strange state of affairs.

In order to find out exactly what the new law is about, we asked a French trade union representative in the metal industry a number of questions.

That trade unionist sent us a written contribution which he has prepared for the International Conference Against Deregulation and For Labour Rights for All, which will be held in Berlin at the end of February 2002.

Denis Langlet is Secretary of the Works Committee at GEMS, Secretary of his trade union branch, and a regional representative of a metalworkers' trade union. He is also a member of the Workers Party, which is affiliated to the International Liaison Committee, which in turn is supporting the Berlin Conference.

The comrade is prepared to answer any question that British trade unionists might have about the law in question, which the ETUC [European Trade Union Confederation] refers to in glowing terms, even putting it forward as a model fit for implementation throughout Europe.

Report from Denis Langlet:

On 19 January 2001, the French parliament passed a law titled "Reduction and new organisation of working time". Not surprisingly, the Labour Minister, Mrs. Aubry, and the rest of the French government have stated that this law is positive for the workers, for employment and for labour rights.

What exactly is its content?

Why did so many workers and their unions go on strike in so many workplaces when this law came into effect?

Even now, in January 2002, public sector workers in several towns are striking against the threat to their benefits contained in this law.

The simple fact is that this law is not about reducing working time.

This law introduces flexibility in working time and permits unpaid overtime.

a) This law creates a new definition of working time (Article 2). The law defines actual working time as the time during which the employee is at the disposal of the employer and must conform to company directives, not spending time on personal business.

Under this legal definition, the following times are excluded from actual working time: travelling time between home and workplace, breaks which are not defined by law or collective agreement as actual working time; for instance dressing and undressing times and business trips.

With this new definition, the employer can reduce working time without a reduction in time spent in the workplace.

In this way, they can increase productivity.

b) Before, working time was measured by the week, and the working time standard was a week made up of five workdays and two consecutive rest days. It was one of the most important gains of the 1936 general strike in France. This new 35-hour work week law has removed all these standards. Work hours can be calculated on an annualised basis. In this case, the employee will have to work 1,600 hours a year (Article 8). Working time can vary each week from zero hours per week to 48 hours per week, or up to 44 hours per week for a period of 12 weeks.

The average weekly working time during the period or the year must be 35 hours (Article 6).

The rest period can't be less than 11 hours per day and 24 hours per week.

But since 1936, the working time upper limits have been 10 hours per day with two rest days per week. So, with the new definitions, an employee can work 13 hours per day (24 minus 11), and 6 days per week (Article 7).

These new standards comply with a European Directive issued in 1993.

So the first paid overtime is the first hour above the average working time counted for the period or for the year. For example, a worker could work 44 hours a week without overtime if his or her working time is 26 hours the next week, or 32 hours for the three next weeks.

The opportunity to vary weekly working time is very attractive for the employers. It allows them to increase working time in response to orders, to reduce stocks and by using this law the employers can reduce costs significantly without paying weekly overtime.

This law defines three categories of management, and two of them are excluded from the 35-hour working week.

More seriously, working time is no longer counted for the majority of employees under these categories - they can work up to 13 hours per day and they have to work 217 days per year.

This is an important issue, because in France all engineers are classified as management, and the employers could ask them to work 2,821 hours each year (217 x 13), i.e. even more than before this new law was introduced.

With this opportunity, MNCs (multinational companies) can recruit French staff for their plant engineering department, commercial department and all the management functions, and relocate all the manufacturing and administration to low labour cost countries like India, China and Mexico.
Be sure that they are already starting to do it.

Wage freezes and reductions

Workers are requesting that their monthly wages be kept at the same level under the new law. But there is nothing in this law that covers this demand. So, employers can impose a monthly wages reduction if they keep the same hourly wage. With unpaid overtime, it is a new source of cost reduction.

c) This law permits working time to be organised differently plant by plant , workplace by workplace and even worker by worker.

It introduces the individualisation of contracts against collective-bargaining standards.
This French law permits company-level agreements with downgraded agreements made at the sectoral or national level.

This law has to be put into effect through company-level and plant-level agreements, and these plant-level agreements can exist side-by-side with downgraded agreements made at the national level.

Clearly, the plant-level agreement can be more flexible than the national collective agreement. So, with this scope for exemptions, plant-level agreements can depart from collective agreement standards.

Therefore this law is a serious threat to every single collective agreement.

This is not the first attack on collective agreements.

Since the general strike in 1936, the national level was the main location of labour rights in France. Before 1980, company-level bargaining complemented agreements at higher levels. So despite low union density, bargaining coverage in France is high.

Each sector is covered by national collective bargaining. By contrast, top management want to decentralise collective bargaining as they decentralise business operations by outsourcing and subcontracting.

Now, they are trying to weaken trade unions and to obtain more flexible agreements.

The right of " derogation," which has been written into this new law, enables employers to make company-level agreements more flexible.

d) This law has been brought in to implement European Directives, and in particular the 1993 Directive on work organisation.

Since the signing of the Maastricht Treaty, every country in the EU, like France, has had to comply with the European Directives issued by the European Commission.

This Commission is really the European centre of deregulation.

The Commission has already reintroduced night work for women and the possibility of paid employment for a child under the age of 16, and even as young as 13.

The Commission issued the Directive permitting the calculation of working hours on an annualised basis.

In fact, the European Union is trying to integrate trade unions into the corporate management plans to increase productivity and reduce cost. [See interview below with Daniel Gluckstein, national secretary of the French Workers Party.]

For all these reasons, this law is a new attack on the independence and freedom of labour unions.

In the framework of European Commission policy, this law pulls together all the policies promoted on a world scale by the WTO, IMF and World Bank.

These policies have a common point: the reduction in labour costs, and to reach this goal these policies are trying to destroy the independence of labour organisations and to deny trade unions the right to free bargaining.

Denis Langlet Paris (France) January 2002