Germany’s Free Democratic Party (FDP) has launched a campaign to scrap the eight-hour working day law, calling existing legislation “outdated”. 

FDP call eight-hour working day law “outdated”

FDP parliamentary representative Lukas Köhler has told the dpa that the centrist party is campaigning to scrap Germany’s eight-hour working day law.

Current labour law rules that German employers can’t ask their employees to work more than eight hours per day on weekdays. In some cases, this can be extended to 10 hours, but only if the employee has worked no more than an average of eight hours per day over six calendar months or 24 weeks.

The FDP sees the existing law as a “time stamp prejudice” and calls the eight-hour day an “outdated tenet”. “That’s why we will move towards introducing more flexible working hours, which employers and employees can agree together within the framework of collective bargaining agreements,” Köhler told the dpa. 

But already below the 80 percent goal set by the European Union, the number of professions linked with collective bargaining agreements is on the decline in Germany. According to 2023 figures from the Federal Statistical Office (Destatis), fewer than half of employees in Germany work in professions where collective bargaining agreements are in place.

Speaking to the dpa, Köhler maintained that the FDP’s campaign was an "important first step in the right direction, which should be followed by a complete switch from daily to weekly maximum working hours".

Largest-ever 4-day work week trial ongoing in Germany

Over 100 years after the eight-hour working day was introduced in Germany, there are many conversations about how the working week should be reformed to accommodate the ways our working and personal lives have changed.

While the FDP is making the case for relaxing the law on working hours, the 4 Day Week Global trial, currently ongoing in Germany, argues that reducing work time to four, eight-hour days per week and paying employees the same wage as when they worked a five-day week, is the route to increasing national productivity.

Since February, 45 companies have been taking part in the largest-ever trial of its kind in Germany which is due to end in December 2024, when companies will assess the trial outcomes and whether they want to adopt the 4-day week model for longer.

The German trial follows a trial in the UK in 2022 involving 2.900 employees. The UK trial was named a “resounding success”, with 56 of the 61 participating companies deciding to continue using the four-day week model after the pilot period was over, 18 of these companies said that the new policy was a permanent change.

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