Changes in Working Time (Routledge Revivals)

An International Review

Paul Blyton

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2014
• ISBN:
  9781317696421
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Human Resource Management
• Index: Business

First published in 1985, this book examines the major components of working time from an international perspective, considering the individual aspects of working time, with particular emphasis on the argument that work should be shared to alleviate unemployment and the case for further increasing the flexibility and choice in working arrangements. Paul Blyton reviews working time since the Industrial Revolution, when a strict time-frame was first imposed on workers, and the growth in work-sharing, flexitime, part-time working and changes to the retirement age.

1

Introduction

In the eighteenth century, the combination of technical innovations that we know as the Industrial Revolution made the factory both feasible and dominant. From the 1770s on, then, an increasing number of workers found themselves employed at jobs that required them to appear by a set time every morning and work a day whose duration and wage were a function of the clock.

Nothing was harder. These were people who were accustomed to work at their own pace to take their rest, and distraction, or for that matter relieve themselves, as and when they pleased … Coming as they did from cottages and fields they felt the factory to be a kind of jail, with the clock as the lock (Landes, 1983, p. 229).

In all these ways — by the division of labour; the supervision of labour; fines; bells and clocks; money incentives; preachings and schoolings; the suppression of fairs and sports — new labour habits were formed and a new time-discipline imposed (Thompson, 1967, p. 90).

For Landes and Thompson, the Industrial Revolution marks a fundamental change in the significance of time in the work process. Time discipline, time keeping, the control of time — these became key characteristics of an industrial system based on predictability, regularity, synchronization of production and maximization of output. Two centuries away from the Industrial Revolution time remains a principal component of the modern work organization and a crucial aspect of the bargain struck between employer and worker. Start and stop times, overtime, part-time, ‘flexitime’, time and motion — time represents an essential characteristic of the nature and experience of work. The organization and control of time remain central to the organization and control of work and the work organization.

Yet, whilst the importance of time in the work-place has remained — not to say strengthened by the various technological changes which have occurred — the actual patterns of worktime have undergone considerable modification, a number of these changes being most evident in the last two decades.

The aim of this book is to identify the ways working time has developed in recent years, evaluating the significance of the changes and highlighting the major factors which have influenced both change and stability in working time patterns. A central purpose of this endeavour is to achieve a capability to evaluate the various arguments which currently challenge the logic of existing worktime arrangements. Such an enquiry would seem to be overdue. Despite the changes which have occurred, and the significance of working time not only for other aspects of work but also for wider spheres of family and community life, this feature of work organization has not attracted the range of investigation it deserves. Moreover, much of the previous research directed towards working time (as distinct from the many studies of work which have indirectly shed light on aspects of worktime) has considered single facets of the worktime pattern, such as overtime, shiftwork, compressed schedules or retirement. Whilst this work has been valuable, so too is the wider approach which seeks to take in the various developments occurring in individual aspects, in search of a more general understanding of the broader trends and possibilities for future worktime patterns. Given the nature of questions confronting the present configuration of working time — in general, its appropriateness in the context of profound changes in economic, social and technological circumstances — this broader approach appears to offer considerable potential reward even if, regrettably, at times this has to be at the cost of a less than comprehensive investigation of issues surrounding any one particular feature of working time.

What is the nature of this challenge to the existing pattern of working time? What are the arguments for change, and what changes are sought? It is with these questions, together with an outline of subsequent chapters, that the remainder of the introduction is concerned.

Arguments for Change

More than at any other time this century the logic of existing worktime patterns is being questioned. The sources of this challenge are many and varied, reflecting not only the breadth of the subject (e.g. ranging from questions of school-leaving age to those of retirement, and from optimum length of shifts to the benefits of sabbatical leave) but also the interrelation of working time and other aspects of the social system, such as marriage, child-rearing, education and community activity. Whilst the sources of criticism of existing patterns vary, one theme common to several concerns the call for a greater degree of choice and flexibility in working time arrangements, so as to reflect the growing diversity of the contemporary workforce, the varied needs of different groups, the different technologies being applied and the different economic outlook from that prevailing in previous decades. Later chapters will examine the scope for change in this direction, partly by examining the diversity and flexibility which has already developed in worktime patterns in Britain and abroad; but first let us turn briefly to some of the main arguments for change.

The Work-sharing Argument

During previous periods of high unemployment, it has been common for workers’ representatives to call for a cut in working hours and a more even distribution of jobs among the working population as a whole. Often quoted, for example, is Samuel Gompers, the American trade union leader who in 1887 commented that ‘As long as we have one person seeking work who cannot find it, the hours of work are too long’ (quoted in MaCoy and Morand, 1984). Contemporary examples can also be found in the annals of British labour history, notably in the campaign for an eight hour day in the 1880s and 1890s (Harris, 1972). Almost a century later in the late 1970s and 1980s, the high and sustained level of unemployment has similarly given rise to calls for work-sharing, with trade union organizations and others calling for reductions in working time as one measure to counter the shortage of jobs. Within individual countries this general call has been translated into various specific demands for change in the pattern of worktime, including the introduction of a shorter working week, longer holidays, reductions in overtime working and greater provision for early retirement (Blyton, 1982a).

In this latest period, the work-sharing argument has been reinforced by future projections of unemployment which suggest that in most Western industrialized countries, unemployment is likely to remain at or above its present high level for the foreseeable future,¹ unless far greater efforts towards its alleviation are made, than have been attempted hitherto. In part this pessimistic prediction reflects the multi-causal nature of unemployment, which includes not only domestic and international recession and responding deflationary policies, but also the transformation of formerly labour-intensive manufacturing industries, a growth in the size of labour forces (partly reflecting changing attitudes among married women towards work), increasing competition from newly industrializing countries, and the potential labour-saving capacity of those advances and innovations which come under the umbrella title of ‘new technology’.

The argument for a reduction and redistribution of working time has not gone uncriticized, however. Employers and various governments, both in Britain and abroad, have criticized work-sharing principally on the grounds that if this reduction in hours were not accompanied by a fall in earnings (a position being sought by most trade unions), then the resulting increase in labour costs would damage competitiveness in such a way as to bring about a loss in sales and an overall increase in unemployment, rather than the intended opposite (Confederation of British Industry, 1980; Department of Employment, 1978b).

These claims and counter-claims for work-sharing remain unresolved, partly because of the sweeping generalizations made on both sides. What is required is a more careful appraisal of the proposals in the light of working time changes already occurring, including work-sharing initiatives introduced in individual countries in recent years. In conjunction with knowledge of people’s preferences for different worktime arrangements, and a more disaggregated approach to the work-sharing arguments, greater insight is possible into the conditions under which work-sharing could be both cost effective and job creative. This is one of the tasks undertaken in Chapter 2.

The Discretion/Choice Argument

In the past two decades, the concept of workers’ participation in decision-making has received widespread attention both from management and unions. On the one hand, management have fostered ‘motivational’ forms of participation which involve little sharing of real decision-making powers and have as their main goal increases in worker commitment and productivity (the emphasis of these forms is on ‘involvement’ rather than shared influence). Trade unions, on the other hand, have focused their aspirations much more on ‘power-sharing’ forms of participation, in which the influence sharing through joint decision-making bodies is more explicit and the objective a democratization of the workplace. The development of both types of participation machinery has been far from uniform; indeed, some writers have argued that the development of workers’ participation has been cyclical in nature, growing during periods of labour shortage but decaying in times of weak labour power (Ramsay, 1977). Given certain factors, however, such as the legislative underpinning of participation in some countries, and possibly changes in employee expectations and attitudes to traditional patterns of authority and subordination, it is arguable that the cycles of participation have in fact been situated on a rising trend, such that over a long period of time the extent of employee participation in workplace decision-making has been increasing, albeit slowly.

One aspect of work which has yielded very little to increased employee influence, however, is the pattern of working time. Any increase in worker control which participation has engendered has been concentrated on such issues as the organization of the work task and aspects of working conditions, and not on the pattern of working time. Indeed, whilst various aspects of the structure and process of the work organization have been subject to considerable change, a number of the features of worktime patterns have exhibited a high degree of institutional rigidity. Of course, increased discretion and participation in working time decisions has not been completely absent; the growth in ‘flexitime’ arrangements among (mainly white-collar) workgroups, for example, has been one way in which the degree of choice has been extended. In other areas, however, such as the ability to choose one’s age and rate of retirement, or the flexibility to transfer from full-time to part-time working (and vice versa), the amount of discretion available has remained, for the most part, highly restricted.

The extent to which changes occurring in recent years represent a significant increase in flexibility, the indication of patterns of preference among workforces for different worktime arrangements, and the evidence of employers’ ability to incorporate successfully a greater degree of freedom over working time, are important issues which crop up at several points throughout the book.

The Argument Relating to Changes in the Labour Force

It may be argued that the predominance of jobs which take up around eight hours a day for five days a week for 46 to 48 weeks a year, is a pattern most appropriate to a society typified by family organization where one of the adults (usually the male) is engaged in outside employment, whilst the other takes responsibility for housekeeping and child-rearing activities. Yet, as has been well documented, recent years have witnessed a considerable change in the overall pattern of the labour force, and in particular the marked rise in the employment of married women (Clark, 1982; Dex and Perry, 1984). The reasons for this are several, and include rising material expectations, changes in female (and male) attitudes to paid employment, the changing demand for labour due to the expansion of the service sector, and the trend towards smaller families which has helped to reduce the overall length of time that women are involved in child-rearing.

Many of the jobs held by married women are part-time. Yet despite the growing importance of part-time work (in Britain, approximately 20 per cent of all jobs are part-time, and among women workers 42 per cent of jobs in 1981 were part-time), in many ways the availability of part-time work has remained highly circumscribed. This is reflected not only in the low levels of pay, status, security and promotion prospects which typify most part-time jobs, but also in the general lack of opportunities available for switching from full-time to part-time employment. The growing support for job-sharing, whereby two people share the responsibilities of one full-time job, represents one attempt to overcome some of the traditional limitations of part-time working by creating access to better paid and more challenging part-time jobs. Yet, in the short term at least, the widespread diffusion of the job-sharing concept faces a number of major obstacles; these, together with the extent to which this innovation in working time has managed to establish a foothold in different countries and the other developments occurring in part-time working, are examined in Chapter 6.

The Equality/Harmonization Argument

A greater number of advantages continue to be associated with being a non-manual/white-collar, rather than a manual/blue-collar, worker. Managerial and other white-collar employees ‘on the staff’ have traditionally enjoyed shorter hours than their manual counterparts, longer holidays and less shift-working, as well as better pay, improved sickness benefits, pension entitlement and better canteen facilities — the list covers virtually all aspects of the terms, conditions and environment of work. Together with the unequal treatment of men and women in employment (particularly with respect to access to higher grade jobs), this differential treatment of blue-collar and white-collar workers continues to represent a major source of inequality in industry (Littler and Salaman, 1984).

Yet even in Britain, where the more prominent class system may have exacerbated the clear drawing of distinctions between manual and non-manual workers, some reductions in inequality have taken place in recent years. In working-time aspects, for example, differences in holiday entitlement have been reduced and the variation in weekly hours somewhat diminished. Yet considerable differences in treatment still remain. In Britain in 1984, the average full-time male manual worker worked over 44 hours per week (including overtime) whereas his white-collar counterpart worked around 38½ hours; over a working lifetime of 40 years, this means that the blue-collar worker is working the hours equivalent of more than five years longer than the white-collar worker,² and in conditions which are generally far more unsafe, unhealthy and typically less personally fulfilling and financially rewarding.

With the routinization of many white-collar tasks (and the associated reduction in education needed for, and status attached to, those jobs), together with the proliferation both of white-collar employment and those on the margin of the blue-collar/white-collar distinction (various types of technical jobs, operators of computer-controlled machines, etc.), this difference in treatment is becoming even more difficult to justify or sustain than previously. The call by representatives of manual workers to harmonize the working time patterns of blue- and white-collar grades may be expected to be a major focus of parity arguments in coming years.

The Technology and Organizational Efficiency Argument

Most Western industrialized societies have been witnessing fundamental changes occurring both in their industrial structures and within individual workplaces. At the general level, the main changes taking place have involved the long-term transformation of a number of primary and manufacturing industries, in particular the large-scale de-manning of such industries as coal-mining, iron and steel production, dock-working and ship-building. In the 1970s this was accompanied by a substantial growth in service industries, to a point where in several countries a majority of workers are now employed in the service sector, which covers such disparate activities as local and central government, education, health, banking and insurance, the tourist and entertainment industries and retailing.

In parallel with these macro-level changes have been significant developments within the workplace, in particular the application of new electronic technologies, both in the office (microcomputers, word processors, text transfer equipment, etc.) and increasingly on the shop-floor (computer numerical control machines, robotics, etc.). A widening range of jobs from paint-spraying to typing, tool-making to record-keeping are being rapidly transformed by the flexibility of the integrated circuit and the modern computer.

Given this scale of change in the way work is carried out, it is not surprising that pre-existing patterns of working time are beginning to be called more into question as to their suitability for the contemporary society. The length of the working week, the current organization of shift-working, established patterns of overtime, and the ratio of full-time to part-time employment, may each be seen to be increasingly problematic in the light of the technological and structural changes taking place. In addition, o...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Original Title Page
• Original Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• List of Figures
• List of Tables
• Preface
• 1. Introduction
• 2. The Working Day, Working Week and the Work-sharing Argument
• 3. Overtime and Shiftwork
• 4. Holidays
• 5. Short-time Working
• 6. Part-time Working and Job-sharing
• 7. Flexitime, Compressed Workweeks and Staggered Hours
• 8. Changes in Retirement Patterns
• 9. The Future of Working Time
• Bibliography
• Author Index