Flexibility and Control: New Challenges for Working-Time Policy in the European Union

ABSTRACT

This article gives a brief overview of recent working-time trends across European Union (EU) countries and the challenges for the working-time policy of the trade unions. The account highlights the growing difficulties of trade unions in many EU countries in maintaining their organisational strength, the interaction between these difficulties and the changing systems of collective bargaining around working-time, and the changes in both the duration and the structures of working time in terms of differentiation and flexibilisation. The latter add to the challenges faced by the unions, as more workplace-focused approaches to the representation of workers' working-time interests are required. A final consideration is given to the links between working time and the welfare state, which provides the most effective ‘indirect’ working-time regulation for women. The main conclusion from the overview is that future working-time policies of trade unions in most EU countries will have to be simultaneously more workplace-focused and more ‘political’.