Call for 40-hour week in German public sector

Employers at regional government level in Germany want to end the 38.5-hour week and move back to a working week of 40 hours or more.

Key parts of the German public sector have indicated for some time that they want their employees to work longer hours, and this process was taken further forward last month when the regional governments announced their plans.

They intend to terminate the current agreement, which provides a working week of 38.5 hours, at the first opportunity - probably 30 April - and from that date will require new staff to work longer. Current staff are protected as the existing agreements will continue in force, although legally only for union members.

The regional government in Bavaria has already indicated that it is planning to introduce a 42-hour week, while in Germany's largest region, Nordrhein-Westfalen, employees could be asked to work 41 hours.

The employers have already imposed longer working time of up to 42 hours a week on some public servants, whose special status means that their pay and conditions are not negotiated. They now want to extend longer working to normal employees, arguing that they want to treat all those working for the regions in the same way.

Verdi, the services union, has rejected these arguments. Gregor Falkenhain, the Verdi official for regional government in Nordrhein-Westfalen, said the workforce was not prepared to accept "that normal employees are now to have dictated to them what the special-status public servants have already had imposed."