In Germany, the powerful industrial union IG Metall has put the four-day week at the top of its agenda. During the next negotiations in the steel industry, which will begin this autumn, this reduction in working time will be at the heart of the demands. IG Metall wants to obtain for workers in the sector a 32-hour week, with full wage compensation.
Since 1995, in the metal and electronics industries, covered by collective agreements negotiated by the union, the working week has been 35 hours, compared to 40 hours in the rest of the economy, but IG Metall does not don’t intend to stop there. The union, supported by Social Democratic Party (SPD) co-chair Saskia Esken, has launched a broad debate on the introduction of the four-day week, with a maximum of thirty-two hour work, more widely in the EU. economy.
They are based on recent studies which show that benefiting from three days of rest per week improves employee satisfaction and efficiency, reduces sick days… and thus increases overall productivity. IG Metall argues that the four-day week would even be a solution against the lack of staff, endemic across the Rhine.
Promise of increased productivity
This new organization would allow, according to the union, to better reconcile professional life and private life, offering the possibility to “millions of women” currently forced into part-time work or not working due to family responsibilities to return to more attractive full-time jobs.
It is also a question of opening up to young people, many of whom wish to reduce their working time to carry out their personal projects. A survey conducted in September 2022 by the insurance company HDI thus evaluates at 75% the percentage of German workers wishing to switch to the four-day week with the same remuneration, with a peak at 83% among those under 40, who are also 17% to consider as possible a reduction to four days without salary compensation.
“A four-day wage-compensated week could make a decisive contribution to keeping the industry attractive to young professionalsexplained Jörg Hofmann, president of IG Metall, in an interview with the daily Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, mid-April. In view of demographic changes and ever-increasing competition for a scarce workforce, this is a decisive success factor. »
You have 41.3% of this article left to read. The following is for subscribers only.