Arguments about the 35-hour week

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The disputes over the 35-hour week refer to conflicts that trade unions and employers' associations in the Federal Republic of Germany have fought over the reduction of weekly working hours since the late 1970s . In particular, the 1984 -run labor disputes implementation of the 35-hour week in the metal and printing industries were among the longest and toughest in the West German collective history. In exchange for the entry into reduced weekly working hours, the unions had to allow the companies greater flexibility in organizing working hours.

background

Technical rationalization : With the use of microelectronically controlled robots , automatic machines and data processing methods as well as the progressive consolidation of work processes, companies have increasingly contributed to replacing human labor with machines since the 1970s . Unlike in previous decades, the rationalization- related job cuts no longer seemed to be compensated for by growth effects. In the face of “popular antifordism and antitaylorism ”, the trade unions no longer welcomed technical productivity gains unreservedly, but increasingly problematized the individual and macroeconomic consequences of rationalized labor.

Mass unemployment : in the steel , shipbuilding and electrical industries , the economic crises in the mid-1970s and early 1980s had a particularly strong impact. Between 1980 and 1983 alone, the number of employees in the German metal industry was reduced by 10%. There were also mass layoffs in the West German printing industry , where the number of employees fell by over 20% in the decade between 1973 and 1983 to only 164,912. Overall, the number of unemployed in the Federal Republic increased due to the economic recession between 1980 and 1982 from 890,000 to 1,833,000. At the end of 1983, almost 2.5 million unemployed were officially counted.

Pressure from the business camp: Parts of the German business camp reacted to the economic crisis of the 1970s by questioning the model of Fordist regulation. In order to improve the earnings prospects of the companies again, from their point of view above all the "inflation of claims" allegedly caused by the unions had to be brought under control. The investment barriers for which the trade unions and the welfare state are largely responsible could only be removed again by making the production factor labor sustainable . The Lambsdorff paper published in September 1982 referred to the economic reorientation as a program of the Christian-liberal federal government under Helmut Kohl .

Defensive of the trade unions: Insofar as they had to accept lower collective bargaining agreements and their influence on the structuring of working conditions was declining, trade unions saw their fighting strength impaired by mass unemployment. Within the membership, the waning power of union wage policy led to growing legitimation problems. The problems that “unions in crisis” were confronted with were summed up by the chairman of IG Metall, Hans Mayr, in his annual report for the 1983 trade union day : “We finally need a sense of achievement again after we have seen the last three Years could hardly show anything. " In addition, the beginning was in 1982 uncovered scandal involving mismanagement and personal acceptance of advantages in union-owned housing company Neue Heimat negative impact on the public image of the DGB affected -Gewerkschaften.

Actors and Arguments

Unions

In the early 1970s, the trade unions based their proposals for shorter working hours primarily on the " humanization of the world of work " they called for . The trend towards the compression of the working day should be cushioned socially. With the worsening economic crisis in the second half of the 1970s, labor market policy arguments came to the fore. Many DGB trade unions demanded a redistribution of the existing work in view of the rising number of unemployed and a simultaneous increase in labor productivity . However, reductions in working hours would not only create new jobs, but also prevent existing ones from being cut. "An army of millions of people still in employment would become unemployed without a reduction in working hours." The increase in free time also played an important role in the union's justification for reducing working hours, which opened up better opportunities for employees to shape their individual and social life independently.

Business associations

The employers' associations categorically opposed a further reduction in weekly working hours to below 40 hours. In a so-called "taboo catalog", the Federation of German Employers' Associations (BDA) stated in 1978 that "a further reduction in the volume of work by shortening the weekly working time to less than 40 hours is in no way responsible". "It would seriously impair the necessary economic growth and thus also jeopardize the competitiveness of the German economy." Because of higher labor costs, the introduction of the 35-hour week leads less to a decrease than to an increase in unemployment. Dieter Kirchner, the general manager of Gesamtmetall , brought the negative attitude of the entrepreneurs to the 35-hour-week to the formula "Better four weeks strike than one minute reduction of working hours". In the early 1980s, more and more entrepreneurs combined their rejection of shorter weekly working hours with proposals for greater “working time flexibility”.

Parties

CDU / CSU : In a key proposal of the CDU federal executive committee for the Hamburg party congress, which was adopted on September 21, 1981, the CDU rejected the demand for the introduction of the 35-hour week as "undifferentiated" and instead advocated more flexible and less centralized structures the job market. This is the only way to solve the problems on the labor market, and not through a general reduction in weekly working hours. After the change of government , the CDU stuck to its rejection of the 35-hour week. In a speech at the Junge Union's Germany Day on November 12 and 13, 1983, Helmut Kohl described the union's demand for a reduction in weekly working hours to 35 hours as "absurd, stupid and foolish". As an alternative to reducing weekly working hours, the federal government presented a draft law in December 1983 to facilitate collectively agreed early retirement regulations.

FDP : In its Mainz resolutions of December 1978 to reduce working hours , the FDP declared a reduction in weekly working hours to be desirable in terms of family policy. Even here, however, the flexibilisation of daily and weekly working hours as well as the relaxation of the shop closing law were at the center of the list of requirements. After the turnaround in Bonn , Federal Minister of Economics Otto Graf Lambsdorff justified the rejection of the 35-hour week with the “competitive and job-destroying consequences” of reduced weekly working hours from the FDP's point of view. In the so-called Lambsdorff Paper , he had already warned against expecting a reduction in working hours to reduce unemployment. At best, industry-specific solutions, the waiver of wage compensation and temporarily shortened working life with correspondingly reduced pension entitlements could make a small contribution to solving the employment problems.

SPD : In the SPD , the union demand was evaluated differently after 35 hours. In a speech to Bundeswehr officers, the former Chancellor Helmut Schmidt spoke out against wage compensation. “The 35-hour week cannot be realized if you are not prepared to receive wages for even 35 hours. Otherwise the German products will be even more expensive. " Willy Brandt, on the other hand, seemed to want to support the unions in their fight to introduce the 35-hour week. The SPD's federal party congress in Essen in May 1984 declared its solidarity with the unions striking for the 35-hour week. In 1988, Oskar Lafontaine , then Prime Minister of the Saarland, suggested that working hours should be reduced to 30 hours by cutting wages for upper income groups.

The Greens : The represented in the Bundestag since 1983 Greens argued in the 1980s for a shortening of the working week from. The party justified its support for the 35-hour week with the expected employment policy effects, with growth-critical arguments, with the increased opportunities for participation due to the reduced workload and with the need for a gender-equitable division of reproductive work . The Greens hoped to take into account the time sovereignty of employees with the model of a guaranteed basic income and a “right to less work independently”. On the question of whether the reduction in working hours should be accompanied by full wage compensation, the Greens avoided a definitive political determination, but spoke out against lower and middle income wages.

Internal trade union discussion

Purpose of reducing working hours

At the beginning of the 1970s, the trade unions in the Federal Republic of Germany justified their demand for further shortening of working hours (e.g. through extended training periods, lowering the retirement age or six-week annual leave ) primarily with the humanization of the world of work that they considered necessary . Against the background of massive dissatisfaction with working and living conditions, the then DGB chairman Heinz Oskar Vetter complained in an article published in 1973 for the trade union monthly bulletins about inhumane wage systems (“ Piece of work is murder”), shift work , and stress caused by increased performance requirements and increased work pace as well as other unhealthy working conditions, which have led to 2.6 million accidents at work annually in the Federal Republic of Germany alone, 4,200 of which are fatal. In addition to their criticism of a working world characterized by “monotony and meaninglessness”, the unions took concrete measures to improve working conditions. In the fall of 1973, the metal workers of Baden-Württemberg, organized in IG Metall, implemented the so-called stone cooler break of eight minutes of personal recovery time per hour by means of a three-week strike to compensate for particularly stressful piecework .

In the course of the return of mass unemployment since the mid-1970s, the reference to a necessary humanization of the world of work in the trade union discussion was increasingly pushed into the background by the hope of employment policy effects of reduced working hours. In its proposals to restore full employment from 1977, DGB no longer only called for state job creation measures , but also called for a reduction in working hours. Growth rates that would lead to the elimination of mass unemployment in the medium term now appeared to the unions to be illusory and also questionable from an ecological point of view. Many unions saw working time reductions as an effective tool to distribute work more effectively and to tackle the process of division between “job owners” and the unemployed.

A minority within the trade unions took the view that committed advocacy of working time reductions could also be a means of regaining the union's ability to act in times of economic structural crises, which makes itself independent of the restrictive requirements of the state and companies. The demand for the 35-hour week is “an expression of the endeavor to develop independent weapons against unemployment. It shows that the union can no longer rely on the state and the government to solve the problems at hand. "

Ways to reduce working hours

Although the German trade unions had agreed in principle on the goal of further reducing working hours since the late 1970s, they were divided on the most appropriate means. At the DGB Congress in 1978, no agreement could be reached on the concrete implementation of shorter working hours in terms of collective bargaining.

In the IG Druck und Papier , the demand for a 35-hour week has been part of the official resolution since 1970. With the Deutsche Postgewerkschaft , the German Railway Workers Union and the Wood and Plastics Union , other DGB individual unions advocated a reduction in weekly working hours to 35 hours from the mid-1970s. At its 12th trade union day in September 1977, IG Metall discussed such demands in a very controversial manner. Against the express will of the IG Metall board of directors, 45 administrative offices advocated a reduction in weekly working hours to 30–35 hours. With a narrow majority, the demand for the 35-hour week was included in the union's catalog of objectives, but it should not be associated with setting priorities. After the 35-hour week had already been called for in the steel workers' strike in 1978/79, the IG Metall board finally decided in September 1982 to go into the next wage dispute with the demand for the 35-hour week. The modalities of its concrete implementation were also discussed among the proponents of the 35-hour week. The debate was about the need for full wage compensation and the need to forego income improvements. In addition, the duration of the transition period was discussed under the heading of “starting the 35-hour week”.

In contrast to the concept of the 35-hour week, other, more social partnership- oriented DGB unions campaigned for different models of shortened working life. The food-pleasure-restaurants union advocated that older workers should be allowed to retire early. The IG Chemie-Papier-Keramik laid in the early 1980s on the model of collective pension fixed. Even Hans Janssen , which is responsible for tariff policy board member of IG Metall, favored to September 1982, the model of collective pension. The union textile and clothing urged the DGB Congress in 1982 reduced working hours for older workers. The IG Mines and Energy and the IG Bau-Minerals gave early retirement models preference hours 35-week before. While IG Metall was preparing for the dispute over the 35-hour week, IG Chemie-Papier-Keramik signed a collective agreement on March 25, 1983 that reduced the weekly working hours for older employees to the 40-hour week but held on demonstratively.

Structure of the 35-hour week

The proponents of the 35-hour week had different ideas about how the shortened working week should be designed. Left-wing social democratic positions in favor of a fixation of performance standards and an at least temporary commitment to the interim goal of a seven-hour day were opposed to social-liberal voices who could also imagine a 35-hour weekly working time as the result of an average of several weeks ("working time accounts"). Between these poles there were proposals for an extension of the weekend (“short Friday”).

Labor disputes around the 35-hour week

Strike in the steel industry 1978/79

Between November 28, 1978 and January 10, 1979, workers in the North Rhine-Westphalian iron and steel industry went on strike to reduce the weekly working time to 35 hours. The reduction in working hours should take into account the particularly stressful working conditions in the steel industry, but above all secure jobs and counteract the trend towards mass layoffs in the industry. Since the outbreak of the structural crisis in 1975, 40,000 jobs had been cut in the West German steel industry. The steel companies categorically rejected the reduction in weekly working hours demanded by IG Metall. Even during the collective bargaining negotiations, employers prepared intensively for a possible labor dispute by increasing stocks.

On November 7, 1978 the collective bargaining negotiations that had begun in the summer were declared a failure. In the ballot , 86.9% of IG Metall members voted for a strike. IG Metall decided on a priority strikers , who included first eight farms with a total of 38,000 employees in the labor dispute. The lockouts with which the Association of the Iron and Steel Industry responded to the strike affected 30,000 other workers in addition to the strikers. On December 5, IG Metall agreed to the company’s demand that the North Rhine-Westphalian Minister of Labor and Social Affairs Friedhelm Farthmann , an advocate of shortened working hours , mediate the labor dispute. In the course of the mediation talks, preparations were made to switch from a far-reaching reduction in weekly working hours to a "typical steel" solution. In many steel factories there were violent conflicts between strike activists and union leaders.

The compromise proposal submitted on January 6, 1979 to the negotiating commissions on the trade union and business side did not provide for a reduction in weekly working hours. In addition to 4% more wages, employees should instead receive free shifts and more vacation days. After a six-week strike, 54.47% of union members voted in favor of the result and 45.53% against. «The labor dispute in the steel industry [...] ended with a defeat measured against the goal of starting the 35-hour week. On the other hand, considerable success was achieved with the extension of vacation (6 weeks in steps for all employees), additional free shifts for night shift workers and older steel workers, and income increases of 4%. The price was high. The current working time regulations were set for a further 5 years. This made it clear that a new edition of the dispute about the weekly working time [...] could only take place again in 1983, so that conditions could already be foreseeable worse at that time. "

Strike in the printing industry in 1984

Between April 12 and July 5, 1984 IG Druck und Papier carried out a thirteen-week strike to introduce the 35-hour week. Since mid-February 1983 and mid-January 1984 the current Lohnrahmen-, wage and collective bargaining negotiations as well as the settlement proposals of which began on February 20, 1984 arbitration were declared by the union on April 3, 1984 failed. Already on March 16, 1984 - and thus still during the peace obligation - there had been warning strikes, in which 9,000 employees from 80 companies took part by March 23, 1984. While the IG Druck und Papier demanded the introduction of the 35-hour week with full wages, the Bundesverband Druck (BVD) wanted the 40-hour week to be fixed until December 31, 1987.

After the failure of the collective bargaining negotiations, 83.3% of the 28,700 union members called for a strike vote in a total of 423 companies spoke out in favor of strikes. From the outset, IG Druck und Papier expected that its strike would not end before the IG Metall industrial action. They also tried to prevent lockout measures from entrepreneurs as far as possible. For these reasons, in the words of its chairman Erwin Ferlemann, it relied on “flexible labor campaigns”. The newspaper publishers, which are part of the Bundesverband Druck, did without lockouts, but nevertheless resorted to harsh industrial action methods.

Emergency edition of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ) from July 1, 1984 in the unusual Berlin format

With some sensational actions, both parties to the collective bargaining tried to win over public opinion. Union members ensured that on individual strike days the comment columns in selected daily newspapers such as the Bild-Zeitung (April 28, 1984) or the Weser-Kurier (May 27, 1984) remained unprinted. In several cases, the production of daily newspapers could also be blocked on a daily basis. Conversely, newspaper publishers used the then new technical process of fully electronic upheaval to create “emergency editions” of their newspaper on their own. A copy of the FAZ produced in this way was delivered from the printing works on June 24, 1984 by helicopter.

Kurt Biedenkopf , the arbitrator named by both parties on June 3, 1984, failed on June 21 with his proposal for an agreement due to the resistance of the Federal Association of Printing . The offer made by entrepreneurs on June 30 to take over the arbitration verdict from the metal industry was again rejected by IG Druck und Papier. "For the printing industry, the working hours should be shortened for every employee and not just on average for the individual company." An individual reduction in working hours could actually be implemented in the collective bargaining agreement, and the entrepreneurial dogma of the 40-hour week was broken, but instead of 35 hours, employees in the printing industry had to work 38.5 hours from now on. In addition, the collective agreement, which was approved by 60.8% of 52,388 members of the IG Druck und Papier on July 12, 1984, provided for more flexible working hours.

Strike in the metal industry in 1984

Between May 14, 1984 and July 4, 1984, workers in the Baden-Württemberg and Hessian metal industries struck for the introduction of the 35-hour week. Previously, several months of collective bargaining and top-level talks between trade unions and employers had gone without an agreement. The Entrepreneurs' Association Gesamtmetall rejected shortened weekly working hours and instead suggested making working hours more flexible . For this purpose, u. a. the part-time work expanded and early retirement be introduced for selected cohorts. The trade unions indicated that they would be accommodating on the issue of more flexible working hours, but they also insisted on starting the 35-hour week. To reinforce its opposing positions, the union carried out warning strikes across Germany from March 12, 1984, in which 367,000 employees took part. On April 25, 1984, IG Metall officially declared the collective bargaining to have failed and initiated ballots in the collective bargaining districts of North Württemberg / North Baden and Hesse for May 7th to 9th. Over 80% of union members were in favor of starting a labor dispute.

The strike for the introduction of the 35-hour week began on May 14, 1984 in 14 selected automotive suppliers in the North Württemberg / North Baden district and was extended to nine companies in Hesse on May 21, 1984. Immediately after the start of the strike, the employers announced lockouts. At the beginning around 43,000 workers took part in the strike actions, between 65,000 and 84,000 workers were affected by lockouts a little later. At the height of the strike, 57,500 members of IG Metall stopped work. According to company statements, 147,000 metal workers were affected by “hot” defensive lockouts, and 396,000 other workers were affected by “cold lockouts”. IG Metall pursued the strike tactic of exerting as much pressure as possible on the metal industrialists with the least possible effort (“mini-max”). Conversely, the employers' association was interested in using lockout measures to make the strike very costly for the union as quickly as possible. In the three weeks after May 24, 1984, parallel to the industrial action, there were repeated negotiations and top-level talks between the union and the employers' association. Although both sides had meanwhile withdrawn from their maximum demands, these consultations were declared inconclusive by IG Metall on June 13, 1984 and interrupted.

After the collective bargaining parties had determined that the free negotiations had failed, they agreed on the procedure of special arbitration and on the former defense minister and union chairman Georg Leber and the Constance labor lawyer Bernd Rüthers as arbitrators. Under their aegis, a compromise line emerged in the industrial action, according to which the IG Metall demand for a general reduction in weekly working hours should be linked to the overall Metall Metall demand for more flexible working hours in the company. The settlement proposal of the special arbitration board, which was presented to the public on June 26, 1984, provided for the average weekly working time to be reduced to 38.5 hours. It should be possible to flexibly distribute these weekly working hours between the employees in a range between 37 and 40 hours. Both the Gesamtmetall board and the large IG Metall collective bargaining committee agreed to this arbitration ruling. The strike ended when, in a strike vote between June 29 and July 4, 1984, 54.52% of IG Metall members in Baden-Württemberg and 52.39% of their Hessian colleagues agreed to the “Leber Compromise”.

Further wage disputes about the introduction of the 35-hour week

In the context of the strike clashes around the 35-hour week, collective agreements were reached in a number of other branches in 1984 that had an impact on weekly working hours. Without a labor dispute, a collective bargaining agreement in the wood and plastics processing industry of Rhineland-Palatinate was reached before the end of the labor dispute in the metal industry, which combined a reduction in weekly working hours with a considerable increase in flexibility in company working hours. On October 1, 1984, the 38-hour week was introduced in the North Rhine-Westphalian steel industry, without any flexibility in working hours beyond what was customary up to then. The 38.5-hour week was introduced in wholesaling and retailing with effect from October 1, 1986, and in paper processing and metalworking on November 1, 1986 and January 1, 1987, respectively. In the banking and insurance industry, it was also applied January 1, 1987, the 38.75-hour week. In 1987, almost half of all employees benefiting from DGB collective agreements had regular working hours of less than 40 hours per week.

In 1987, in a second step, the unions in the metal and printing industry reduced the weekly working time to 37 hours.

In 1990 the collective bargaining parties in the metal and printing industry reached an agreement on the gradual introduction of the 35-hour week until 1995.

In 2017, the union IG-Metall demanded that employees should be entitled to reduce their working hours to up to 28 hours per week for a period of up to two years in order to look after children under 14 in the household or to look after family members. The demand by IG Metall for partial wage compensation for this group of employees is particularly controversial. Employers also declare that the shortage of skilled workers precludes such a right to a reduction in working hours. According to the sociologist Ingrid Artus, the compatibility of family and work is becoming more important with increasing female employment .

Evaluation of the collective bargaining disputes

Unions

In the mid-1980s, IG Metall and IG Druck und Papier claimed for themselves that with the 38.5-hour week they had broken the taboo set by the employers' associations not to reduce working hours below 40 hours. The reduction in weekly working hours by 1.5 hours was the first step into the 35-hour week, which after further wage disputes was finally introduced in 1995 in the West German metal and printing industry. IG Metall also gave a positive assessment of the fact that, with the help of the strikes, it had "successfully fended off attacks by employers on employees' assets". The concessions that the unions were forced to make also weighed on what they saw as the partisan attitude of the Federal Government and the Federal Labor Office. In particular, the Franke decree was criticized. The planned refusal of wage replacement benefits for workers who were "coldly locked out" was intended to improve the conditions of labor disputes in favor of the employers' side. The federal government also intervened with its unilateral public statements in the collective bargaining autonomy.

IG Metall and IG Druck und Papier took credit for having formulated an independent alternative to mass unemployment with proposals for redistributing work in times of crisis. Organizations pushed on the defensive have thus become recognizable again as forces for social reform. Not least because of this, the number of members of IG Metall increased noticeably in the second half of the 1980s. In contrast to the neoconservative forces in Great Britain or the USA, the “coalition of cabinet and capital” in the Federal Republic had not succeeded in inflicting a severe defeat on the unions.

Business associations

In contrast to IG Metall, the employers' associations did not evaluate the "Liver Compromise" of 1984 as an "entry into the 35-hour week". Rather, due to the flexibility options, "the course has been set for an exit from the general reduction in working hours". They referred to the possibilities opened up by the collective bargaining agreement to be able to better adapt individual working hours to company needs and, after the confrontation with IG Metall, welcomed the tendency towards industrialization of collective bargaining policy. "With this delegation of decision-making powers and design options to the management and works councils, the options for flexible working hours have been significantly expanded."

Consequences of the struggle to reduce working hours

Employment Policy Effects

The contribution of the reduction in weekly working hours to the reduction of mass unemployment was assessed differently by the collective bargaining parties and their related economic researchers. The entrepreneur side generally denied that declining unemployment figures were due to reduced working hours and instead attributed it to the more flexible working hours. Scientists close to the union were also skeptical of the expected employment effects of an initially only 1.5 hour reduction in weekly working hours. "Despite the reduction in working hours, the number of employees in the metal and printing industry will continue to decline, since the annual productivity development is particularly high here."

Making working hours more flexible

Because the “Leber Compromise” provided for the possibility of not distributing the weekly working hours evenly, but rather depending on operational requirements over the individual working days, one can speak of a destandardization of the eight-hour day . Saturday and weekend work has also increased. As part of this development, individual working hours could be made more dependent on operational requirements. Only some of the employees have been able to increase their own time sovereignty in the course of the more flexible working hours. "In this respect, the time sovereignty balance sheet must remain ambivalent: some employees have obviously benefited from the restructuring of company working hours in recent years, while others have rather lost them in the company's flexibility campaign."

Implementation of collective bargaining policy

According to the collective agreement concluded in 1984 in the metal industry, the works councils and company management should be responsible for the specific design of the framework regulations from now on, instead of the trade unions and employers' associations. Overtime and overtime became the subject of company agreements through these opening clauses. “The skepticism of the works councils that has dominated the 38.5-hour collective bargaining agreement with regard to the establishment of the company has persisted to this day - with a few exceptions. In recent years, the economic crisis and growing mass unemployment, which were reflected cum grano salis in a weakening of the company's interest representation vis-à-vis management representatives, have contributed to this; In the face of entrepreneurial threats with the relocation of parts of the company or with downsizing, the works councils were often forced to pursue a defensive policy of safeguarding the location, which ultimately resulted in more concessions to the company - not least in the area of ​​company working hours. "

Performance compression

«The reduction in working hours has undoubtedly led to an intensification of work . Since the first round of operational implementation of the reduction in working hours in 1985, it had been described that at least in the salaried and in many time-wage areas, companies tried to compensate for the reduction in working hours by intensifying their work. This runs [...] against the actual intentions of reducing working hours, because this results in a reduced employment effect. "

Dispute over Section 116 of the Employment Promotion Act

On the business side, the temporary injunctions of the social courts in Frankfurt and Bremen , which suspended the Franke decree, were described as "unbearable". Workers who, according to the union's understanding, had been "locked out cold" were still entitled to unemployment benefits or short-time working benefits. The unions saw these court decisions as a contribution to restoring parity. In accordance with the demands of the employers' associations, the black and yellow government coalition with its Minister of Labor and Social Affairs Norbert Blüm ensured that the goals of the Franke Decree were brought into law. With the “Act to ensure the neutrality of the Federal Labor Office in the event of industrial disputes” , Section 116 of the Employment Promotion Act was changed in May 1986 to the effect that “employees indirectly affected by strikes (cold lockout) are no longer entitled to wage replacement benefits from the BA”.

literature

  • Alternative Economic Policy Working Group: 35 hours are enough! Reduction of mass unemployment and improvement of working and living conditions by reducing working hours , Cologne 1987, available as PDF .
  • Reinhard Bahnmüller: The strike. Collective bargaining dispute over the reduction of working hours in the metal industry 1984 , Hamburg 1985.
  • Peter Bartelheimer / Jakob Moneta: That couldn't have been all ... The fight for 35 hours , Frankfurt / M. 1984.
  • Christa Herrmann / Markus Promberger / Susanne Singer / Rainer Trinczek: Forced flexibility in working hours. The 35-hour week in company and trade union practice , Berlin 1999.
  • Peter Klemm: Power struggle of a minority. The collective bargaining conflict in the printing industry 1984 , Cologne 1984.
  • REVIER editorial team: strike winter. The steel workers strike 1978/79. A documentation , Duisburg 1979.
  • Association of the Metal Industry Baden-Württemberg: The Labor Dispute '84 , Stuttgart 1984.
  • Wilhelm Weisser (Ed.): The struggle for working time in the metal industry 1984 , Cologne 1984.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Rüdiger Hachtmann : Unions and Rationalization: The 1970s - a turning point? in: Knut Andresen / Ursula Bitzegeio / Jürgen Mittag (eds.): After the structural break? Continuity and change in the world of work, Bonn 2011, p. 182
  2. ↑ Cf. Rüdiger Hachtmann: Unions and Rationalization: The 1970s - a turning point? in: Knut Andresen / Ursula Bitzegeio / Jürgen Mittag (eds.): After the structural break? Continuity and change in the world of work, Bonn 2011, pp. 181–209.
  3. ↑ Reinhard Bahnmüller: The strike. Collective bargaining conflict and reduced working hours in the metal industry 1984, Hamburg 1985, pp. 16–17.
  4. ↑ Erwin Ferlemann : Balance of the labor dispute 1984 - from the point of view of the IG Druck und Papier, in: trade union monthly books 11/1984, p. 3.
  5. ↑ Reinhard Bahnmüller: The strike. Collective bargaining conflict and reduced working hours in the metal industry 1984, Hamburg 1985, pp. 16–17.
  6. ↑ See Reinhard Bahnmüller: The strike. Collective bargaining conflict and reduction of working hours in the metal industry 1984, Hamburg 1985, p. 20.
  7. ↑ a b Otto Graf Lambsdorff : Concept for a policy to overcome weak growth and combat unemployment ( memento of October 29, 2013 in the Internet Archive ), Bonn 1982 (PDF; 204 kB)
  8. ↑ Reinhard Bahnmüller: The strike. Collective bargaining conflict and reduction in working hours in the metal industry 1984, Hamburg 1985, pp. 28–31; Rainer Zoll (Ed.): The main thing is that I have my job; Frankfurt 1984, p. 256
  9. ^ Josef Esser : Unions in the Crisis. The adaptation of the German trade unions to new world market conditions, Frankfurt / M. 1982.
  10. ↑ Hans Mayr quoted. according to IG Metall: Minutes of the 14th Ordinary Trade Union Congress, Munich / Frankfurt / M. 1983, p. 337
  11. ↑ Reinhard Bahnmüller: The strike. Collective bargaining conflict over working hours reduction in the metal industry 1984 , Hamburg 1985, p. 32
  12. ^ Michael Schneider: The struggle for the reduction of working hours from industrialization to the present, in: trade union monthly magazines 2/1984, p. 89.
  13. ^ Gerhard Bäcker / Reinhard Bispinck: 35-hour week. Arguments for securing and creating jobs and for more time to live, Westberlin 1984, p. 14.
  14. ↑ Reinhard Bahnmüller: The strike. Collective bargaining dispute over the reduction of working hours in the metal industry 1984 , Hamburg 1985, p. 48
  15. ^ BDA: Catalog for the coordination of wage and collective bargaining issues, documentation in the Frankfurter Rundschau of January 26, 1979, p. 13.
  16. ↑ Wilhelm Weisser (Ed.): The struggle for working time in the metal industry 1984, p. 49 ff.
  17. ↑ Dieter Kirchner quoted. According to Hans Mayr: The fight for the 35-hour week. Experiences and conclusions from the collective bargaining movement 1984, in: trade union monthly books 11/1984, p. 664
  18. ^ Gerhard Bäcker / Reinhard Bispinck: 35-hour week. Arguments for securing and creating jobs and for more time to live, Westberlin 1984, p. 41 ff.
  19. ↑ CDU Federal Executive: Leading motion for the 30th Federal Party Congress in Hamburg decided on September 21, 1981, p. 11.
  20. ↑ Quotation from Susanne Gesa Müller: Determining factors of procyclical labor productivity - theory and empiricism for the manufacturing industry in the Federal Republic of Germany between 1960 and 1994, p. 84.
  21. ↑ Reinhard Bahnmüller: The strike. Collective bargaining dispute over the reduction of working hours in the metal industry 1984 , Hamburg 1985, p. 24
  22. ↑ Mainz resolutions of the FDP to reduce working hours, December 1, 1978 Mainz resolutions (PDF; 170 kB).
  23. ↑ Cf. Otto Graf Lambsdorff quoted. according to Handelsblatt dated November 21, 1983.
  24. ↑ Helmut Schmidt quoted. according to Die Welt of October 31, 1983
  25. ↑ Wilhelm Weisser (Ed.): The struggle for working time in the metal industry 1984, pp. 62–63.
  26. ^ Wilhelm Weisser (Ed.): The struggle for working time in the metal industry 1984, p. 63.
  27. ↑ See Horst Kahrs: Oskar Lafontaine on the prerequisites for an active appropriation of social wealth, pp. 2–3, Lafontaines active appropriation .
  28. ↑ Quoted from Helmut Wiesenthal : Shortening of working hours - work redistribution, in: Frank Beckenbach u. a. (Ed.), Green Economic Policy. Feasible utopias. Cologne 1985, p. 87.
  29. ↑ Cf. Antonia Gohr: Green Social Policy in the 80s: A Challenge for the SPD, ZeS working paper 05/2002, pp. 22-23.
  30. ↑ Heinz Oskar Vetter : Humanization of the world of work as a trade union task, in: trade union monthly books 1/1973, p. 2 ff.
  31. ↑ Heinz Oskar Vetter: Humanization of the world of work as a trade union task, in: trade union monthly books 1/1973, p. 4.
  32. ↑ Ursel Beck: 1973 - Steinkühler break on strike
  33. ↑ Hans Mayr: The struggle for the 35-hour week. Experiences and conclusions from the collective bargaining movement 1984, in: trade union monthly books 11/1984, p. 662
  34. ↑ REVIER editorial team: strike winter. The steel workers strike 1978/79. A documentation , Duisburg 1979, p. 18
  35. ↑ a b ver.di federal board: Druck + Papier Extra - special edition of the ver.di industry newspaper April 2011 ( memo of November 29, 2011 in the Internet Archive ), pp. 3–4.
  36. ↑ Reinhard Bahnmüller: The strike. Collective bargaining dispute over the reduction of working hours in the metal industry 1984 , Hamburg 1985, p. 42
  37. ↑ Reinhard Bahnmüller: The strike. Collective bargaining dispute over the reduction of working hours in the metal industry 1984 , Hamburg 1985, p. 42
  38. ↑ Reinhard Bahnmüller: The strike. Collective bargaining dispute over working hours reduction in the metal industry 1984 , Hamburg 1985, p. 34
  39. ↑ Reinhard Bahnmüller: The strike. Collective bargaining disputes over reduction of working hours in the metal industry 1984 , Hamburg 1985, p. 37
  40. ^ Wilhelm Weisser (ed.): The struggle for working time in the metal industry 1984 , Cologne 1984, p. 11 ff.
  41. ↑ Reinhard Bahnmüller: The strike. Collective bargaining conflict over working hours reduction in the metal industry 1984 , Hamburg 1985, p. 37; Wilhelm Weisser (Ed.): The struggle for working hours in the metal industry 1984 , Cologne 1984, p. 19.
  42. ^ Wilhelm Weisser (Ed.): The struggle for working time in the metal industry 1984 , Cologne 1984, p. 21.
  43. ^ Gerhard Bäcker / Reinhard Bispinck: 35-hour week. Arguments for securing and creating jobs and for more time to live, Westberlin 1984, p. 20
  44. ^ Michael Schneider: Dispute over working hours. History of the struggle to reduce working hours in Germany, Cologne 1984, p. 180
  45. ^ Josef Esser: Unions in the Crisis. The adaptation of the German trade unions to new world market conditions, Frankfurt / M. 1982, p. 180.
  46. ^ Josef Esser: Unions in the Crisis. The adaptation of the German trade unions to new world market conditions, Frankfurt / M. 1982, p. 183.
  47. ^ Michael Schneider: Dispute over working hours. History of the struggle to reduce working hours in Germany, Cologne 1984, p. 181.
  48. ↑ REVIER editorial team: strike winter. The steel workers strike 1978/79. A documentation, Duisburg 1979, p. 37 ff.
  49. ↑ Reinhard Bahnmüller: The strike. Collective bargaining dispute over the reduction of working hours in the metal industry 1984, Hamburg 1985, pp. 39–40.
  50. ↑ Peter Klemm: Power struggle of a minority. The collective bargaining conflict in the printing industry 1984, Cologne 1984
  51. ↑ Peter Bartelheimer / Jakob Moneta: That can't have been all ... The fight for 35 hours, Frankfurt / M. 1984
  52. ^ Erwin Ferlemann: Balance of the labor dispute 1984 - from the point of view of the IG Druck und Papier, in: trade union monthly magazines 11/1984, p. 671–683, p. 678.
  53. ↑ Workers' policy: printer strike in Frankfurt ... “FAZ” flown out by helicopter. Police operations against striking printers, supplement to workers policy 5/1984
  54. ^ Robert Jungmann / Gerhard Henrich: A chronicle of the printer strike 1984. Data, facts, events, reports, comments, letters, facsimiles, Frankfurt / M. 1984
  55. ↑ Klemm 1984, p. 199
  56. ^ Wilhelm Weisser (ed.): The struggle for working time in the metal industry 1984, Cologne 1984, p. 82.
  57. ↑ Reinhard Bahnmüller: The strike. Collective bargaining dispute over the reduction of working hours in the metal industry 1984, Hamburg 1985, p. 91 ff.
  58. ^ Wilhelm Weisser (ed.): The struggle for working time in the metal industry 1984, Cologne 1984, p. 92.
  59. ↑ Reinhard Bahnmüller: The strike. Collective bargaining dispute over the reduction of working hours in the metal industry 1984, Hamburg 1985, p. 142.
  60. ↑ Reinhard Bahnmüller: The strike. Collective bargaining conflict over working hours reduction in the metal industry 1984, Hamburg 1985, p. 142; Settlement proposal of the Special Arbitration Board quoted. according to Wilhelm Weisser (ed.): The struggle for working time in the metal industry 1984, Cologne 1984, p. 133. 1984: 133
  61. ^ Wilhelm Weisser (ed.): The struggle for working time in the metal industry 1984, Cologne 1984, p. 139.
  62. ↑ Alternative Economic Policy Working Group: 35 hours are enough. Reduction of mass unemployment and improvement of working and living conditions by reducing working hours, Cologne 1987, p. 59.
  63. ↑ Alternative Economic Policy Working Group: 35 hours are enough. Reducing mass unemployment and improving working and living conditions by reducing working hours, Cologne 1987, pp. 59–60.
  64. ↑ Alternative Economic Policy Working Group: 35 hours are enough. Reducing mass unemployment and improving working and living conditions by reducing working hours, Cologne 1987, pp. 60–61.
  65. ↑ Reinhard Bispinck: Working time calendar 2008. Data from 25 branches of industry, Düsseldorf 2008, p. II.
  66. ↑ Reinhard Bispinck: Working time calendar 2008. Data from 25 branches of industry, Düsseldorf 2008, p. II.
  67. ^ IG Metall demand. What are the benefits of a 28-hour week? In: Der Tagesspiegel. October 12, 2017. Retrieved October 15, 2017 .
  68. ↑ Reinhard Bahnmüller: The strike. Collective bargaining dispute over the reduction of working hours in the metal industry 1984, Hamburg 1985, p. 150
  69. ↑ Hans Mayr: The struggle for the 35-hour week. Experiences and conclusions from the collective bargaining movement 1984, in: trade union monthly magazines 11/1984, p. 665
  70. ↑ VMI Baden-Württemberg: Der Arbeitsklampf '84, Stuttgart 1984, p. 27
  71. ↑ VMI Baden-Württemberg: Der Arbeitsklampf '84, Stuttgart 1984, p. 27
  72. ^ Wilhelm Weisser (ed.): The struggle for working time in the metal industry 1984, Cologne 1984, p. 147 f.
  73. ↑ Gerhard Bosch: Labor market development and trade union employment policy, in: Labor dispute over working hours. Perspectives for the future of trade unions in a flexible working world, Marburg 1985, p. 191.
  74. ↑ Christa Herrmann / Markus Promberger / Susane Singer / Rainer Trinczek: Forced flexible working hours. The 35-hour week in company and trade union practice, Berlin 1999, p. 201
  75. ↑ Christa Herrmann / Markus Promberger / Susanne Singer / Rainer Trinczek: Forced flexible working hours. The 35-hour week in company and trade union practice, Berlin 1999, p. 200
  76. ↑ Christa Herrmann / Markus Promberger / Susanne Singer / Rainer Trinczek: Forced flexible working hours. The 35-hour week in company and trade union practice, Berlin 1999, p. 204
  77. ↑ Christa Herrmann / Markus Promberger / Susanne Singer / Rainer Trinczek: Forced flexible working hours. The 35-hour week in company and trade union practice, Berlin 1999, p. 200
  78. ^ IAB: The main changes in the area of ​​the Employment Promotion Act since 1969, Nuremberg 1993, p. 7, AFG changes (PDF; 360 kB)