35 hours
The 35 hours are a measurement of French Economic policy fixing the legal duration of the Working time full-time at 35 hour S by Semaine, on average annual, installation by the Gouvernement Jospin as from 2000. It is possible to work more, by making Overtime. The frameworks and the Liberal professions are not concerned with this legal duration, even if this reform also had impacts over the working time of the executives.
Inspired by a logic of the “division of work”, that certain economists judge exceeded (see Sophisme of a fixed mass of work), the 35 hours reform did not yet completely show the effects discounted by its promoters. According to the estimates, it would have created between 100.000 and 500.000 employment since 2000, at a cost relatively high for the Public finances.
Origin
The Réduction of the working time is an important social aspect of the work world. The Socialist Paul Lafargue had pled for a reduction since 1880, in his book polemizes the Right to the idleness and humanistic the Thomas More, in his book the Utopia , in 1516, had even gone until fixing the ideal duration of the weekly time of work at… 35 hours! In fact the trade unions fought for the reduction of the working time, but the decisions were made by the governments, of left generally. The reader will be able in particular to consult the articles Paid vacations and obtaining the 40 hours week in the article Working time .
The passage to the 35 hours appeared in 1981 in the common Programme of François Mitterrand.
Definitions
For the employed , the weekly working time is time that it passes at the disposal of its employer.
For the employer , the weekly working time is time that an employee passes to work indeed.
It is also judicious to separate the Working time legal (defined by the law or the contract) and the real working time.
The 35 hour old policy
Objectives
The 35 hours the discounted objectives and effects are many and varied:
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the discounted commonplace effect of the reform is better to share in the active population the work load. While summarizing, the reduction of the duration of the work is accompanied a priori by a job creation in order to maintain a volume of presumedly constant total work.
- the law can thus be perceived like an opportunity of starting again the negotiations and the social dialog in order to optimize the organization of work and thus into final of increasing the productivity of the economy.
- On the individual level, measurement brings also spare time to the workers, likely to improve their family life, associative… It is thus likely to improve the living conditions, of health of the employee, but also the conditions of its life and its family. Among the expected various effects of such a social change one can thus quote a reduction of the health expenditure, an improvement of the productivity by health, a righter allocation of the functions between men and women within the hearth, a more important attention on his family (e.g. the education of his/her children, listening and assistance with old…)
General case
The reduction of the working time (RTT) is a Politique installation by Martine Aubry, under the government of Lionel Jospin, aiming at reducing the weekly duration of work in order to create Emploi S and to start again the economy in France, to fight against the Chômage by the division of work (although there is not division of the work stations themselves).
This policy falls under 48 hours a maximum working time, according to the Directives of the European Union.
In 1848, the legal duration of work was 84 hours in France, then 40 hours in 1936, 39 hours in 1982, and 35 hours in 2002. But already in 1996, the Law on installation and the reduction of the working time (known as Law Robien, by Gilles de Robien) offered a help to the companies to encourage them to apply this policy (around 10% of social contributions in less within the framework of 10% of recruitings in more). In the facts, rare are the companies which tried the experiment to apply this law between 1996 and 2002.
After the law Robien, this policy gave place to a Loi of orientation and incentive relating to the reduction of the working time (law n°98-461 of the June 13rd 1998) having for goal to prepare the ground and to inform employers, then with a Relative law with the negotiated reduction of the working time (law n°2000-37 of the January 19th 2000) to fix the implementing rules of the passage at the 35 hours. For example, the times of passage to the 35 hours depended on the size of the company.
The project was to reduce the weekly duration of the 39 hours work to 35 hours. Concretely, the employee can continue to work 39 hours, but certain overtime that it carries out (4 hours per week) are cumulated to be used in the form of half-days or of complete days of compensatory rest (RC). At all events, the maximum duration of work over one year is 1600 hours. It passed by again at 1607 hours over the year in 2005 following the suppression of non-working Monday of the Pentecost.
Possible examples of formulas:
- 35 hours without RC, 7 hours per day, 5 days per week.
- 37,5 hours per week and 1,33 RC per month.
- 39 hours per week and a half-day of RC per week.
- 39 hours per week and two days of RC per month.
The 35 hours installation was done on a case-by-case basis, and gave place to discussions (sometimes tended) and negotiations between employers and the employees. Word RTT entered the usual vocabulary to indicate, by extension of direction, the compensatory days of rest (RC) gained thanks to the reduction of the working time.
Whenever the negotiation did not give place to agreements, the law specifies the methods of overtime (modified in 2003 by Francois Fillon which increased the quotas). They are limited in a quota: 180h by paid and per annum, 130 whenever the modulation is applied (the weekly duration varies throughout the year).
- Increase of overtime:
These overtime can also be compensated by a compensatory leave (an increase of 25% is equivalent to fifteen minutes per hour additional). Finally the hours carried out except quota give right automatically to a compensatory rest. (50% for the companies up to 20 paid, 100% for the others).
Case of very the small companies
Very small companies (TPE, less than ten paid), have a derogatory mode, which should have ended in 2005 in the preliminary draft but which was prolonged by the Fillon laws.
Very the small companies have a quota of overtime making it possible to the employers to make work 39 H per week without compensatory leave. These overtime are raised of 10% (except different industrywide agreement), which can be, if the employer did not adopt an agreement:
- is converted into vacation, which represents approximately two days of compensatory leave per annum;
- is paid, which represents a pay rise from approximately 1%.
The employer can also decide to apply a master agreement (i.e. an agreement signed by the trade unions and the representatives of the employers of the professional branches), or to negotiate with an employee representative external with the company, member of a representative Syndicat.
Impact
The impact of the reduction of the working time remains dubious because of historical absence of retreat. Thus an investigation of OECD concluded in 2003:
“On the whole, the short-term effects of this measurement were most probably positive on employment. From the point of view of more long run, one can fear that this collective policy of reduction of the working time weighs heavily on public finances and that it started the economic growth potential. ”
Are to be taken into account in the 35 hours economic impact financial dimension, but also social dimension. The increase in the birthrate in France was allotted to the year 2000 initially. 7 years later the boom continues and the 35 hours are a helping factor. The economic impact of this boom of birthrate in France will be able to be measured later on, and to inflect indirectly on the economic growth.
The right-wing opposition with the reform criticizes the high costs of what the French left calls a " Social progress " , for the State and the companies. It is advisable to take account of the following factors, which all do not go in the same direction:
Impact on employment
Assessment of job creation
The ambition of origin of the socialist party was to create 700.000 jobs.The impact of the application of the reduction of the working time is discussed, the studies arriving at contradictory results, not making it possible at present to slice on the number of creations or destruction of jobs (by possible anticipated bankruptcies of companies) resulting from the passage to the 35 hours. The estimates thus go from an absence of profits to a creation of 400 000 employment, by knowing that in 2002 only half of the French employees were indeed at the 35 hours.
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the Research institute economic and social (ANGERS) speaks about 500.000 Nets employment:
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Martine Aubry, the instigator of the project, affirmed in February 2004, that “ approximately 400.000 emplois ” Nets had been created, “except hospital and local government agencies”. The PS officially took again these figures. Dominique Strauss-Kahn for its part considers more credible figures of 200 000 with 250 000.
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INSEE speaks about approximately 350 000 job creations, but recognizes the limits of its method.
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the Medef speaks about a creation of 200.000 jobs to the maximum.
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OECD speaks about a “dubious” assessment, “which will not have that a contribution moderated to the fall of unemployment” and, “in the next years, lower than that of the employment-youths.”
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Denis Gautier-Sauvagnac, Vice-president and Acting general of UIMM, estimates that the 35 hours legislation did not have a positive effect on employment, because manpower of the commercial sector increased at the same rate/rhythm in France as in the other countries of the European Union, although the latter did not carry out similar measurements.
Cost of this job creation
The employees passing to the 35 hours preserved their initial wages (paid 39 hours by working only 35 hours) thanks to subsidies financed by the taxation, and with a moderation of the rises in wages. These subsidies cost the community 16 billion euros each year. The most optimistic figures as for the 35 hours effect, is nearly 400.000 created jobs, are thus to relativize. Indeed, this tax cost is equivalent at the time of recruitment of approximately the double of people paid with SMIC, loads included/understood (16 Billion (1254,28*12*1,4) approximately 759 000 employment). The reduction of the working time then appears, not like a net loss, but like a real shortfall, as much in term of employment that richnesses.
The 35 hours cost is to be relativized when it is known that the falls of loads in question are not conditioned any more at the 35 hours. Thus, it is necessary more to speak about fall of loads to fight against the moonlighting or to increase the competitiveness of the companies without real bond with the 35 hours.
The argument of the figures not round
The implementation of any quantified law raises the question of the thresholds systematically, even in the fictitious example of a division. Example, the company has 35 paid which works 39 hours, same work could be made by 39 employees with 35h, it is " horairement neutre". But, said the CNPF, the company B has 33 employees who work 39h, if it passes to 35h I will be obliged to have 36,77142 employees.
On the other hand, the companies are able to manage with a little more flexibility their requirements as workers according to the number of work hours to achieve.
For example, a company needs 800 work hours weekly absolutely necessary, to divide into several recruitings. At the 39 hours, she would engage 21 people, which corresponds to 819 hours per week, and these 19 overtime are lost by the employer. At the 35 hours, she would engage 23 people, which corresponds to 805 hours per week, from where only 5 hours which are lost by the employer.
On average, at the 39 hours, thus 19,5 hours ago lost, against 17,5 to the 35 hours. In a general way, flexibility is larger for the employer.
Effects on the productivity
Competitiveness of the companies
Among the 35 hours effects on the competitiveness of the companies one can note:
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an increase in costs of labor of 14,3%, because of the reduction of the working time, without wage cutting for the employees or of the 4 overtime cost weekly for those which continued to work 39 hours.
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a deep reorganization of the companies. Part of the additional costs were thus deadened by the productivity gains, but this reorganization had itself a cost, which did not always have a direct effect on competitiveness of the companies.
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an effect of noria: job creations related to young people to the weaker wages at the beginning of career than that of the replaced workers.
According to a comparative study of bearing INSEE over the period 1997-2000, the competitiveness of the companies having adopted the 35 hours, measured by the total productivity of the factors (capital and labor), moved only slightly back (of 3.7%) vis-a-vis the companies remaining at the 39 hours. One can see there a facility of adaptation of the companies to these new schedules, but one should not neglect the effect of the reductions in charges granted by the State for these companies, as well as the frequent freezing of the money wages.
The opinions to date remain (2004) divided. Thus, the increase in the number of voluntary liquidations remains delicate to interpret. According to some, it is about a 35 hours effect, whereas for other he is only one consequence of a lack of competitiveness of some companies that the passage to the 35 hours did nothing but reveal earlier.
Flexibility of the schedules
The counterpart for employers most often negotiated is the possibility of having more flexible schedules.
Thus, when the company had a variation of activity, it was to resort to overtime or the layoff (except agreement of annualisation). The negotiations which followed the Aubry laws generalized the seasonal forms of modulation of the working time or the accounts saving-time.
This modulation of the schedules was made all the more necessary as overtime were strictly reached a maximum by these laws.
Moreover of many SME (tradesmen, liberals) had to decrease the number of opening hours to the public of their company because of the limit at 1600 of the number of hours worked per annum and financial impossibility to engage an additional employee.
Labor productivity
Finally according to OECD over the period 1996-2002, i.e., before the installation the 35 hours:
The time productivity of work knew a strong growth rate in France, 2.32% on average per annum against 1.44% for the European Union and 1.95% for OECD. This average annual growth rate had been only of 1.63% over the period 1990-1996.
However the improvement of the time productivity was not sufficient to compensate for the fall of the working time. Indeed, the productivity per capita knew an average annual growth of 1,06% in France compared with 1,54% in the OECD countries. Moreover this rate was in France of 1,13% over the period 1990-1996.
Social consequences
35 hours and birthrate
During one time when the European countries developed record a vertiginous fall of the birthrate, France has the appearance of an exception. In years 1980 and 90 France had a fertility rate from approximately 1.8 child by woman when its neighbors were in lower part of 1.5. The tendency developed since 2000, one spoke then about the " Boom of the year 2000". Force is to note that 7 years after, this boom continuous. The social progress the such 35 hours is a Co-factor to be taken into account in this success.The fertility rate reached in France 1.97 children per woman, when the average of Europe falls at 1.4 points.
Consequences for the workers
Appreciation by the workers concerned
The RTT also had a major impact on the daily organization of work: in the companies the requirement of improvement of the performances involved a recourse generalized to new technologies with a setting in competition of the individuals, workshops, establishments in term of quantity and quality of the production. The family life was affected by the needs for increased flexibility.
It results from it a contrasted local balance sheet to which a study testifies to INSEE:
“one notices mainly the increase in the time spent with the family (joint and children) and that passed to rest or carry on other domestic activities, of semi-leisure or leisure. ”
“Conversely, the variability of the schedules, the atypicity of the schedules in a general way and its increase, the rise of the objectives and the unfavourable impact of the RTT on remuneration would influence this satisfaction negatively. ”
“This same variability of the schedules also has made it possible to break the unpleasing and oppressive routines " 3-8" , and to move away the ryhtme entêtant " subway-job-dodo". ”
Incomes
In the particular case of the paid taxable people at overtime, the passage to the 35 hours could result in a fall of overall incomes when a share of their overtime was not deducted any more in the same way.
According to a study of bearing INSEE over the period 1997-2002, the purchasing power of paid in top or bottom of the social hierarchy progressed very slightly, but stagnated or moved back in its medium. Indeed, the purchasing power of the workmen knew a rise of 0.8% on average per annum (primarily related to the increase in the SMIC). This rate was of 1% for the executives, but from only 0.2% for the employees, while the intermediate occupations suffered from a negative rate, of - 0.2%. In order to clarify this bad progression of the purchasing power, INSEE raises especially a continuous fall of the premiums related to the renegotiation of their methods at the time of the installation of the reduction of the working time.
In addition, from the agreements on the RTT were sometimes concluded in exchange from a gel from the money wages over several years, which in a context of inflation, even moderate, means retreat of the real wages and purchasing power.
Some good or bad innovations
Executives
A consequence collateral, but properly existential, law " Aubry2" relate to the executives. In the law the labor French, before 2000, the category of employees called " cadre" did not exist, was not defined. What existed in the galaxy called " right of safety sociale" , it was the concept of pension funds complementary to the executives. An employee was defined as tallies according to whether it cotisait there or not. The law of 2000 introduced, for the first time, " cadres" in the labor regulation.
A counterpart of the introduction of the concept of framework into the labor regulation was the introduction, in this same code, of the concept of annual fixed price in days for certain categories of frameworks. Such framework must fill its objectives by working for example 215 days (maximum legal 218 days), free with him to per annum do it in 3:00 /j or 15:00 /j. This type of clause is dangerous insofar as in many companies the annual individual objectives are not negotiable.
The instituting negotiation
Second point which was not an absolute innovation, the concept of " negotiation instituante". It acted, according to certain actors of the économico-social life, starting from a centralized and general legislative text, to decline of the negotiations decentralized to apply the multiple combinations of options opened by the Law. Among the clauses of the agreements thus negotiated could appear of the clauses of " revoyure" , of the clauses of " suivi". A clause of follow-up often comprises the creation of a " joint committee of follow-up of the accord" and obligation of a minimal equal dialog in this commission. In short a negotiation could lead to the creation of an institution (l'" institution" being here commission of follow-up), from where the expression " negotiation instituante". It should be noted that such a step corresponds to the concepts of certain philosophers such as Cornelius Castoriadis, who note that a company, a civilization generally car-builds themselves by creating his institutions without it to really want, but that the car-emancipation of the workers and the owners passes by the explicitly desired car-institution. What does not mean that the objective is filled nor that tedious side effects are excluded. In this case the innovation is due much to the massive aspect of the instituting negotiation.
This point is discussed. Before 1997 existed a consensus largely shared in the reformists of right-hand side and left on the reduction and the adaptation of the working time by negotiations differentiated according to the branches and companies, Gilles de Robien on the right and CFDT on the left for examples. The latter thought however that the negotiations could be made over years with the wire of varied progress of productivity and that would contribute to improve the social relations on the ground. However the fact that the government decides to legislate with haste reduced these hopes to nothing, certain actors, CFDT inter alia, even declared that the fluidity of the social dialog had strongly regressed by the reinforcement of a sterile Manicheism paid owners/.
Rare questionings
The questionings of the agreements which have occurred within the framework of the 35 hours remain rare. One can however quote some cases having given place to an important mediatization.
In July 2004, the employees of Bosch with Vénissieux agreed to pass from 35 to 36 hours without compensation of wages. The company envisaged a suppression of 300 employment over the following years and refused to operate with again investments, noting that the social costs were higher of 20% than Italy or the Czech Republic. Finally the questioning the 35 hours was to allow new recruitings (240).
This case for a few years has inspired by other companies: for example the Soft group, Alcan, Seb, and Hewlett-Packard.
One often speaks in this case about " Blackmail with employment ".
See too
Related articles
- Labor movement
- Martine Aubry
- Lionel Jospin
- Loi the 8 hours
- Sophisme of a mass fixes work
- Dépendance at work
- Overtime
External bonds
- the reduction of the working time 1997-2003: dynamics of construction laws “Aubry” and first evaluations] , Economy and Statistique, 2004, INSEE
- the fall of the duration of the work between 1995 and 2001] INSEE first, 2003, INSEE
- Note up to date synthesis over the Working time in Occident of PolitiquesSociales.net
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