Strikes across Germany & working hours

I don’t understand anything about trade or labor unions. But they seem to be making waves in Germany. So guess what? time to hit the books, papers, and internet…

Doctors & garbage men are striking across the country. Our garbage wasn’t picked up last week b/c of snow but I’m not sure if we’ll have to store our garbage on the balcony in the coming weeks. Apparently, the German blue collar workers are not fighting for more money; they’re against plans to require some state/city employees to work 40 hrs/week instead of the current 38.5 hrs. As ‘Der Spiegel’ magazine puts it: “it’s a labor battle over a mere 18 minutes extra a day — or two extra weeks of work a year without pay, depending on which side you’re on, of course.”

The history is, around 1998, a 35-hour work week as implemented across Europe in order to avoid mass lay-offs. And now, b/c of falling profits from high labor costs, employers want workers to put in 7 hrs more a week — without extra compensation.

Labor unions say the “established rights” of employees are being challenged. But that’s just it. It’s extremely difficult to fire people who have become both complacent over the years and still enjoy a reasonable pay increase every year without increasing their responsibility or contributions to the job. Therefore, it’s impossible to hire the go-getters. Should there be “established rights” in a world driving by an ever-changing economy?

So, is it fair to increase the work hours?

The goverment-run public services are desperate. They have no money to pay their employees b/c they can’t collect enough taxes. People are unwilling to work for less money or loose vacation time. They spend less & save more. Although this seems to be a good idea individually, it seems suicide for a country.

I am not sure that increasing work hours will save the government money b/c they won’t get more from their workers in that time. According to this study, an avg US worker needs to work a mere 11 hrs/wk to produce as much as one working 40 hrs/wk in 1950. By today’s standards, the number of hours needed to produce the 1990 worker’s output has gone from 32 to 29. Companies are not just paying for the labor; but also the energy (electricity, gasoline) cost to keep people in these jobs and the higher risk over people getting injured while at work.

On another note, another study in 1998 found that those who work fewer than 7 hrs/day are 3x more likely to suffer a heart attack compared to people who work an average of 7 to 9 hrs/day. However, the risk is 2.5x greater for those who work more than 11 hrs/day.

I wouldn’t mind working 4 hrs/day and working the other 4 on something else