The 35-hour week in France: the French exception?

The 1980s and 1990s were periods of far-reaching transformations in working hours and flexibility in Europe. Usually those initiatives came from the social partners. Yet France stood out during this period in that it maintained an interventionist state; the climax of public intervention came when th...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Personnel review 2003-01, Vol.32 (4), p.510-525
Main Author: Alis, David
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Collective bargaining
Employment
Flexibility
Labor law
Labor unions
Overtime
Part time employment
Recessions
Regulation
Theory
Union membership
Working hours
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:The 1980s and 1990s were periods of far-reaching transformations in working hours and flexibility in Europe. Usually those initiatives came from the social partners. Yet France stood out during this period in that it maintained an interventionist state; the climax of public intervention came when the Aubry laws were passed introducing the 35-hour working week. Paradoxically, the Aubry laws resulted not in a weakening of collective bargaining, but in an unprecedented series of negotiations in companies. This article sets out the process leading to the laws, and then analyses the results of the negotiations.
ISSN:0048-3486
1758-6933
DOI:10.1108/00483480310477560