REDUCING THE WORKING TIME IN THE EUROPEAN UNION

Working time is a central issue in understanding the development of labour and social relations in the European Union. The advances that the normative and legal regulations of this working condition underwent in the long economic and political cycle in the transition from the 20th to the 21st century, in terms of reducing working time and improving work- life balance, have been threatened in the last two decades. The trend towards shorter working time came to a virtual halt in the 1990s, after which it was passed over on political agendas as the economic and financial crises followed one after the other. This trend became evident during the austerity crisis.

This trend coincided with the business strategies of businesses based on pressure on this working condition. The goal was to use flexibility to achieve greater control over working time, with relevant initiatives at the national level and attempts at European level to revise the Working Time Directive.

The European Commission decided not to pursue the revision of the Working Time Directive, putting an end to years of speculation about the repeal or drastic amendment of this key piece of social legislation. This decision by the Commission means that emphasis must now continue to focus on the area of its most effective implementation. The aim must be to balance the rights and interests of the parties to the employment contract. In this regard, a process that significantly affects the issue of working time has been emerging, the digitalization of the productive economy, and has already transformed many sectors, including public services. Digitalization must be redirected in such a way as to generate massive increases in productivity while controlling its potential and dramatic impact on both the quantity and quality of employment.

The current reality shows how many working people’s working conditions consist of long working hours with anti-social schedules, which inevitably generate stress, fatigue, and exhaustion. The opposite situation is found in the emergence of so-called zero hours

contracts, which ultimately pose a threat to the health of these workers. In addition, they make it very difficult for them to plan their lives in terms of both time and income, given the unpredictability of these new forms of employment.

The current challenge in terms of working time, generally, is to move from a defensive position, particularly due to the austerity crisis, to an offensive one and reduce working time and reappropriate working time for workers in a balanced and healthy way.