 Yes, why everybody, wherever you are, a very warm welcome to our conference, Working Time Reduction and Climate Crisis. Due to the Corona crisis, we are meeting in this online format and not in the rooms of E2E of the European Trade Unions Institute in Brussels as originally planned. I am Margarita Steinrucke from the Working Group Arbeit Fertilien of ATTAK Germany. Together with Adrien Tussaud from Roosevelt, Aidan Harper from the New Economics Foundation and others, we are coordinating the European Network for the Fair Sharing of Working Time that is organizer of this conference. The Rosa Luxembourg Foundation Brussels is supporting us very generously. Without its support, the network could not exist. Many thanks. Also many thanks to the ATTAK for its support for this conference. This network has the goal to connect organizations, initiatives and persons from science, politics, red unions, social movements and others around the question, what's going on with working time reduction in Europe and how can we better coordinate and promote these trials. It began to work in 2013 with a big conference in Strasbourg and is organizing every second year a conference for this behalf. We are proud to say that the network has in the meanwhile around 60 members from 15 European countries. The youngest is Iceland. This year we want to exchange and discuss about the contribution which working time reduction can make to fight the climate change. At the moment somewhat covered by the corona crisis, the climate crisis is the deepest crisis and the most urgent to fight for the whole mankind. And studies like the one our member Philippe Frei made for the Autonomy Institute. It's called the ecological limits of working time show that when we want to reach the 1.5 degree goal of Paris, we have to reduce our working time to around 10 hours per week. So working time reduction is a crucial and constitutional part of the fight against the climate crisis. But also for the just transition in all the climate destroying industry, we need a strong working time reduction to save, respectively give back jobs to the workers who will lose their old ones. Here the trade unions are specially demanded as they are the main actor in the field of working time reduction. The demand of the eight hours day was founding the 1st of May as Labor Day. At the moment we have a running big experiment with working time reduction within the corona crisis. The so-called Kurz Arbeit or short time work is a working time reduction for saving workplaces already successful in the finance crisis 2009. But the relationship of trade unions to the climate issue and the climate movement is not a simple one. Often the conservation of jobs at any price for the concrete workers is nearer than the long-time perspective for the whole mankind. There are no jobs on a dead planet. It's true, but not easy to bring in the head of people with concrete fear for their existence. But there are trade unions that are trying to bring together these two questions. I'm very glad to welcome Tofi Yanicka from Iggy Metall, which has fought successfully for working time reduction in 2018 and made the social ecological transformation to its main issue for the next year. And also, for example, Frans Sweeney from the trade union for energy democracy. He will join us tomorrow. The TUED is a worldwide network of trade unions which explicitly fight for the workers and the climate or environment perspective. The trade unions are a very important player for the working time reduction also in relation to the fight against the climate crisis. But without the huge commitment of all the other movements, climate movements like Fridays for Future, social movements like attacks and Rizzo Roosevelt, women's movements, movement of unemployed, of people in science, politics and churches and many others, they will not succeed in the fight for working time reduction. So, we have here in this conference a lot of other wonderful speakers from science, from politics and social movements and other trade unions I welcome hereby. Many thanks for your commitment and your contributions. I wish us an interesting and productive conference and pass the word now to Andreas Thompson, head of the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation Brussels and to Philippe Pochet, director of Etui, for a welcome address. And afterwards to my colleague, Adria, who will explain us the agenda and the proceeding. So, Andrea, it's your turn. Thank you very much indeed. It's a real pleasure to have this conference here and to continue with the cooperation with the network, even now, if this has to be unfortunately digital and I'm really hoping that we can meet you and we can meet again maybe next year, maybe then actually in Brussels and in presence. So, this is, the whole thing is about work time reduction. So, I believe a welcoming address should be quite brief and then I will try to do this as brief as possible. But still, I want to stress how important the cooperation and the whole issue for us in Brussels and for Rosa Luxemburg Foundation is I said we might meet again next year in Brussels or somewhere else. But still, we don't know how the crisis we are living in now will develop further. And it's not only, obviously, a medical crisis. It is a severe economical crisis. It is a social crisis. And this is a crisis which is now framing everything, literally everything we are doing in politics and developing progressive and leftist concepts. So, it will also shape discussions on the question of work time reduction. It will, of course, also shape discussions on Green New Deal or everything else. Since this crisis now frames everything, it is more, much more important to further develop progressive ideas and concepts like work time reduction. And I'm not, I'm actually not one of them saying the crisis now, this kind of crisis now creates large opportunities and chances for the left. It is, as always, it is a question of the relation of powers. And it is a question of the actual social struggles. It is a question of the ideas and the concepts, which will give a direction for the future. But we also know deep crises often lead to changes, to paradigmatic changes in economics and social politics. So, there might be a chance in it also for the question for work time reduction. This severe economical crisis can also, and I believe easily, lead to a massive return of neoliberalism or even worse. So, it is still a question how we approach the crisis and which kind of concepts and ideas we develop. But at the same time now, we are seeing in this crisis, in this actual crisis, how important state intervention and regulations actually are. So, this is something that could give us hope in many aspects. As I said, it is, as always, future is unwritten. And it is the question what the several forces, but also progressive and leftist forces, now find ways and directions and concepts and ideas to take part in the struggle for the future. And there, transnational organizing and discussion like you and we are doing here is something to give us hope and perspective for the futures. Because still, the struggles have to be let locally or on a national basis. But the exchange of experiences, the solidarity across the borders is a lot. And it can lead to much more. So, I'm very, very glad to see that the network is not even that impressive wide European wide and also worldwide, I believe. It is also broadening. And you have new members also from countries not being part of the European Union, like from Iceland. And this is also good development. In the end, and also in the beginning, the struggle for work time reduction is one of the most original and genuine struggles of workers movement. It is directly addressing the relations between workforce and capital. It is a struggle connected to the question of distribution of profits or respectively surplus value to self determination. And in the end, it's also a struggle connected to the question of sovereignty. This is why we as Brussels office of Oslo Luxemburg Foundation will definitely stay with this issue. And with this important cooperation we have with the network. Now, it should have been brief, and it will be brief. So it's a special pleasure for me to give the word then to Philippe Pochet of Itui. It is very important that organizations like the European trade unions organizations are involved in this struggle. And the last word I have to say, I wish of course you, us very much success with this conference fruitful exchange and discussions. And again, hopefully meet again in Brussels someday, hopefully next year. Thank you very much. Yes, that's, I think it's my turn. As Margarita was saying that we should have the pleasure to meet in the premise of the Itui and to inaugurate a new hybrid room that we have in the ground floor and have this conference and have all the discussion and the important informal discussion. But no, it's the new reality and we have to do that online. We are used to do that, but we still miss the quality of this kind of informal conversation. Even with online we can continue the conversation and this conversation is particularly important. And I'm very happy from the institute is the first time that we have we support formally this network, the attack, the Resort Roosevelt, and we are happy also to work with the Rosalind Somburg shift them in Brussels, because I think also it shows the variety of point of view and the possible collaboration that we need on the topic. And I will return to that at the end. For us at the institute is a very important topic. It will be in a world program and it will be also in the perspective of climate change. But we, with all the crises, I think that's what we are on the left and in the various part of the left. We are generally thinking that we will change the paradigm and that we will win something and last crisis was unfortunately what we did. And I would like to start putting that in perspective because and was set by the previous intervention too. I think that the out of the COVID, the kind of socio-ecological transition that we will discuss now and the impact or possibility to develop with necessity to develop reduction of working time. I think it's just one of the possible scenarios that we have on the table. And the first one is the return of austerity and the never ending neoliberalism is also on the table and not perhaps in short term. But let's be sure that it will not return. But we have also other scenario that I think could be also rather frightening. I call that the authoritarian scenario and could be linked with the green approach is the Chinese. Okay, that's what we protect our citizens and in an authoritarian state, including to have an ambitious goal for climate change and emission. And finally, this kind of full consumption, all kinesianism scenario that we return to a spending, spending, and we don't care, take take flight, take care, that's important for growth, etc. So I think that's what we will discuss the two days. It's one of the scenarios and we have to be very cautious to avoid the other scenario too. What seems to me important starting from the COVID crisis is the climate change strategy and the change in the climate change strategy. And I think that it's nice to put a new figure and to say, okay, we moved to 40 to 55 to 60 percent of our prediction at European level and we can put a nice figure. But if you take that seriously and we have to take that seriously, because if we don't go in that direction, the consequences could be dramatic or will be dramatic. It means that we will have a rapid change in the the production. It will be not a smooth transition. We can call that just transition. Everyone likes something just, but it will be just transition. We will be just transition in a short time and with a lot of change and there is some discussion here also about the car industry, but the car industry will be affected dramatically and the workers in the car industry, if we take that seriously because we will not go for hybrid and then electric car, we will have to accelerate to electric car, which have some consequences on the workforce and not only the workforce for the electric car, but I think nobody is dreaming to have a traffic jam with the electric car. So we will have another mobility. It's not the goal to have traffic jam with the electric car, perhaps in my third scenario, full consumption. That's kind of some dream to have that, but that's not our goal. So I take a sector with 10 million workers. It's not the the small sector of coal, which is 400,000. That's kind of a statistical error in the when you can't and that is just one example. What I want to say now is that we are changing and we will change if we go much quicker and that will be much more difficult than before, because in 30 years we reduce by 25 percent the emission and now in 10 years we have to reduce by 30 percent. So when we have that, what are the the solution and I think what should be and that's where for me and for the institute, the working time is coming back, what could be the kind of the mark or what the brand, what we want to achieve and you can see what all the variable that I think on working time is the most important, is the most distinctive that will give the direction that we want to achieve for the future to avoid also the other scenario, the austerity scenario, the authoritarian scenario or the full consumption scenario, and that's why I think it's important. It's important, but it will not go between without fight, without difficulty and without discussion and then I finish with that and that's why I think this conference is so important because as was said by the two previous speaker, we need to expand the conversation, we need to create consensus and we need also to have conflict, I think that there is no problem for trade unions to have conflict, but we have to create consensus, understanding and also a way forward and I think that's important, that the most important trade union in Europe, at least by the numbers, IG Metall, but certainly with the also the importance that this trade union has in the world debate in Europe is returning and pushing the working time in such a circumstance because it is no longer a kind of idea of some kind of idealist people that have a nice idea, but difficult to put in place, it could be also pushing by real actor having some leverage on the situation. So thank you, we are very happy to contribute on that and I ask everyone set, we hope that you will come in the ETI premises, will not be for the inauguration of this room, I hope that we will have other events before, but next year which also show that we would like to continue with comparison and this first step that we have now, thank you. Yeah, thank you so much Philippe Pochet and now I will give the word to Adrian, he will explain us now the proceedings of the whole conference. Yes, welcome everyone. So on today's program we will have two roundtables, one roundtable is about the recent example of initiative and experimentation on working time reduction in Europe. So Philippe was talking about IG Metall presentation from the IG Metall experimentation and from others from Belgium and Iceland and the idea of roundtable is to give concrete example and show that something is moving and it's not like you said in Utopia, but a concrete idea that could have a real impact. After this roundtable, we will have a single roundtable on the place on working time reduction in the post-growth society. So with three speakers, Juliet Shaw will be strong and beat Zipperman and the idea is to replace or to debate about this vision of the future we want and what is the place of working time reduction in our society and to all the challenges and that you have mentioned Andreas and Philippe and we have to to challenge and to move forward and so that's one table will be with the space to have that discussion and to give some guidelines about it. Again and welcome to our first panel on the recent examples of initiatives and experimentation of the working time reduction in Europe. We took exemplary selection of examples from Germany, from Iceland and from Belgium and in this case we have to organize the panel in the following way. We first will give the word to Sophie Yannicka from the IGMETAL. She will speak and afterwards we will discuss directly her contribution then because Sophie has to leave us rather early around I think 2.30 or 2.40 and then we will go on with Gudmundur and 50 minutes speech and then with Maxime the same procedure and at the end we have a half an hour for the general discussion. Okay so I now proudly present Sophie Yannicka. She is working in the department for collective bargaining of the IGMETAL and they're responsible for all the questions of working time and the IGMETAL is the I think always biggest and mightiest trade union of the world and in the year 2018 the IGMETAL really began after a long silence of more than 20 years to go on with the fight for working time reduction and successfully reached some agreement on this and now in the crisis of Corona but that was before already a crisis in the automobile industry again the IGMETAL is thinking about working time reduction in a more general way. Now I give the word to Sophie Yannicka. Yes hello everybody and thank you very much for inviting me it's a real pleasure for me to tell you something about IGMETAL working time policies yes and I have to apologize in advance that I have to have to leave earlier because I have another panel at three in another online Zoom conference so I'm doing a bit of conference shopping during these days um I will try to make my screen visible wait yep can you see it yes okay I can somebody say something because I can't hear you anymore yes yes we are perfect okay thanks okay um yeah let me start first and then if I talk too much please stop me um yeah maybe in the beginning a few general words um as Magarete introduced IGMETAL did a lot of working time policy but not always let's say we had the big times of working time policies in the 80s where IGMETAL went on strike for the 35 hour week very successfully in Germany so now we have a weekly working time of 35 hours in the German metal industry and then yeah there was a a period of silence around working time policy I would say um this had several reasons um because I think you have waves of of issues in trade union policies and after reaching the 35 hour week in the west of Germany you have to say IGMETAL did a lot of other things we invented new wage systems in the metal industry so we did a lot of other things and in the meanwhile working time policy went from the collective from from a collective issue from a trade union issue to an issue more dealt with in the companies which meant that we we faced a lot of flexibilization of working time in the companies working time uh became longer than before and also important working time in the companies became more unhealthy so we had an increase of unhealthy shift systems for example so um yeah a lot of of um developments in working time which have not been really uh in favor of the workers so um yeah voices in IGMETAL uh became louder and louder uh to to um go back to to working time policies um but it was not so easy to be honest um and IGMETAL made a lot of effort uh during the last I would say seven until five years uh to get working time as an issue back on the agenda we did two big uh surveys uh the the second one especially on working time um we did a big working time campaign uh which led into an negotiation round in 2018 where we came to new regulations on working time uh as Magarito already mentioned um we have to say that this was not easy for us uh we needed industrial action we needed strikes to achieve those new regulations and um I will come back to this but um I think what was the most important for the people um was to get more self-determination uh on on their working time again and then we reached this um this results you see there maybe uh you remember them because I presented it in the last meeting uh of the network already that's why I want to keep it short um we got a new regulation that certain kind of people people who are uh taking care of children of elderly or people who are in shift work uh get a choosing option they can choose if they take some kind of annual extra money or if they uh take eight days off instead and we achieved the right to reduce full time and go back on go back on full full time after that um and yeah this were were the two options we achieved and um yeah now we are on a different point in the debate again I mean we are only two years later uh but as mentioned before we are now in one of the biggest crisis uh you can imagine and uh discussion on working time and especially on working time reduction is uh back on our agenda um you can see there um that in in 2018 we had a focus on individual needs uh in in reduct uh in in the reduction of working time because people said we want to have more self-determination uh with our working time and now uh because of the crisis we are going a bit back on a collective view on working time um yeah but I will come back to this later and look at the time um so what we can say after our negotiation round and collective bargaining struggle in 2018 was um that achieving those new new options for workers on working time strengthened the self-confidence of our colleagues in the companies and also strengthened IG Metall as an organization that has also to do something with the fact that uh we had industrial action on this because I think if you have industrial action on an issue then the workers uh are very proud on it and they are they are taking those regulations much more um as their own ones because they have been fighting for it um yeah and what we also achieved is that after a period uh of of uh working time being seen as a very difficult a very uh um yeah heavy issue let's say for uh shop students that um we now uh saw that working time is again a successful field of action uh in the companies and also for IG Metall and the new options are broadly used in 2019 260 000 workers used this option of eight free days instead of money and in 2000 more already uh more than 340 000 so you see that uh workers are very keen on on getting more free days uh even if they lose money because uh they can they can change the money into three days uh what is interesting in this is that uh in this um changing option money into time time is more worth than money because if you would simply count the money you can uh change into time would be six days but people get eight days um so this is also part of wage compensation let's say we imagine to get more we didn't but at least we get something um and the reduced full time is also used by around 10 000 workers annually this is not so much like the other option of course but it's good for those who would need it so this is what we did two years ago um and if i'm talking about that i have the feeling i'm talking about something historic because we are now on a completely different point in our discussion to be honest um so um what are the perspectives of from perspectives of working time policy for Iggy Metall how to continue um for Iggy Metall it is clear that uh we are further going for uh either collective and individual options to reduce working time we discussed this in our congress last year and it was clear that we will go for this further but now we have three big uh challenges let's say um which which determine our discussion about uh working time the first one is of course the digital ecological and social transformation which it was said before a lot of our sectors very very heavily um if we talk in the in the automotive industry or in the in the supplies industry about ecological uh and digital transformation we are talking about a huge a really huge transformation with um with a lot of of uh impacts for the workers of course um so this is a bit the the mid-term long-term perspective we have uh second perspective is of course of course that we are now in a deep and worldwide economic crisis um and those two things coming together we as Iggy Metall are facing very concretely a lot of struggles in companies for employment and for the future of sites because um you can see in this picture that we are discussing now about a loss of 220 uh thousand jobs in the in the metal center we collected the announce of layoffs of big companies and these are only the big companies you see here um it started end of last mid of last year end of last year um that uh big companies started to announce layoffs and um it was because the crisis began let's say but I think those layoffs uh had to do a lot with the transformation which is going on and then they knew they wouldn't meet uh so many workers in the in the future and you see if you if you count them all together that we are talking about 220,000 a loss of 220,000 jobs it's not clear that this will come of course it's only what they announced and now uh we are discussing and fighting about that let's say um but this is a challenge for us as trade union of course um so um our perspective is now uh to say again very loudly that working time reduction is an instrument to safeguard employment and uh this it's an instrument for the current crisis as well as for the transformation which is uh a more longer or midterm issue because the transformation will lead to more productivity in the companies I mean that's that's the goal of the whole thing that's why they are doing it um and it will of course also to lead it lead to over capacities in the companies and working time uh reduction can safeguard employment in the longer run via the distribution of the remaining work to more more workers um but for us as trade union of course it's very important to uh always to say that uh no matter about which kind of working time reduction we are talking workers must be able to afford it so uh it's not an issue for us to say we reduce working time um without any wage compensation um so in uh in last summer eager metal made a proposal which was discussed very broadly and in the public and in the media and we proposed an option for companies with employment problems to reduce working time to four days per week with at least partly wage compensation um to say it clearly it's not a collective uh reduction of working time for everybody to a four days working week we are discussing about an option for companies with employment problems to do this um yeah why we are saying that maybe I can I can tell something about that later um and as I as I mentioned here we are talking about a model of four days and eight hours working day that would mean 32 hours per week yeah many arguments that we discussed in the title that proposal is that this would be an answer to the structural change in the automotive and supply sector because we say transformation must not lead to mass layoffs but to work for everybody um and of course in the current crisis um it's also a reason for us that industrial jobs and companies uh can be saved via shorter working time because to save the the industrial structure of of an economy uh is for us uh the key for working economy in the future and third argument of course an improved work-life balance for the workers because we still see that work full-time workers have the wish to work shorter uh due to a better work-life balance and uh last but not least less commute uh less commuting more climate protection uh there are studies I think this one is not the only one that um if only 10 percent of the workforce would stay at home one day per week uh that would mean a reduction of 850 million kilogram uh CO2 plus less stress for the workers in the traffic and lower cost for commuting so this could be uh actually a win-win situation there are a lot of more arguments of course but uh due to the time I will stop with those four and we can talk about the others later um so what is important for me here is that just to to make clear that of course Egan et al is one uh of the organization saying we need working time reduction uh to safeguard jobs um but it's important to think uh this all the struggles for working time reduction together and you see that for example uh the the climate aspect is one of our main arguments to reduce working time so we try to to get things together to get different uh discourses together and also um to to link to the to the progressive discourses uh which we have in the society and I think uh the one of the climate protection is one of the most important most important moments um we got good media response in the in the public for for this proposal and of course we had a broad discussion in Egan et al and within our members and in our collective bargaining bodies and we are discussing currently uh in our collective bargaining uh bodies which means in the in the commissions uh of of the uh shop stewards meeting and discussing uh for which demand we will have in the next collective bargaining round if we want to have this uh this proposal as a demand for the next negotiation our negotiations will start in December and we'll then uh go into the next year so this is an open question at the moment but uh I think we will do something on that in the next collective bargaining round and of course we get harsh critics from the employers there was um the the the boss of of the employee's federation who said this is poison for the metal industry and the other interesting uh statement was uh from from um employers federation from Bavaria who said yes this would be a possible option but of course only without wage compensation so you see which struggle we will have to fight if we are going for that um yeah and this is my last point we are going now into the negotiations in the metal sector these negotiations will be very challenging let's say because uh the the the issues are big and we have to do all this under the corona conditions and of course this is something completely new for us I mean to do industrial action uh under these conditions of people not being allowed to meet uh with a lot of people and uh all the all the fear people have or the restrictions we have it will be well a very interesting experience how to do a collective bargaining round especially in such a situation and with such issues for us uh this year and next year thanks yes thank you very much Sophie for this very interesting and very uh actual and concrete contribution um I think uh I have a lot of questions um directly on the concrete circumstances of this uh um now going on um bargaining uh round but first we have a question to you uh from Manuela Klopp uh from Rolo Laksimov Foundation uh too she's asking how could we make sure that the working time reduction in Germany does not lead to relocation of automotive production to Eastern Europe and how do we need an European approach and who could be possible allies in this fight yeah um yes of course we need a European approach that's why I'm here of course um and uh Iggy Metall is also member of of the industrial federation of industrial Europe this is our European federation and in this uh in industrial Europe we also have very big discussions about the question of working time reduction and about the the issue of that actually a lot of unions are discussing now to reduce working time the problem is a crisis is always a very difficult situation to reduce working time because we have uh we don't have so much instruments of pressure towards the the employers because actually if you go for working time reduction um you have to do industrial action and this is all this is easier in a situation uh where uh where the economy is going well because then workers have much much more pressure than than they have in this situation so I think it's a difficult discussion it's a difficult situation for struggle um and of course we can't make sure that this will not lead to relocation but I only can say that um this model we proposed is also a model which is affordable for the employers because of course the employers are also saving money if they reduce working time which partly wage compensation because they are saving money for uh restructuring plans they are saving money for acquisition of of people um when the crisis is over and they they have to to get back the um the well educated people so we think this is affordable and we made the experience also that you never can completely avoid relocation and of course this is one thing which the employers always try to threatening the workers we will relocate but on the other hand we are in touch with our sister trade unions in the other countries sometimes it's easier sometimes it's not so easy but it's it's fact that we have to do something on that um yeah so far to this okay and uh just in the moment we have in Germany strikes in other branches who are not so well organized as the metal in the public traffic and in the in the hospitals for example and they are doing it even if the situation is very difficult and they have support of others and so far I think it's possible to do something okay so I come to the second question um what models uh they might have in mind when it comes to the partial compensation of pay the metal is demanding a partial compensation and pay and uh how is the concrete uh thinking about it yeah to be honest that's not figured out at the moment yeah I mean that's uh this is the thing this struggle will will be about um and it's not only a question of models but also of power relations to be honest I mean sure Iggy Metals has the more the better uh and employers say nothing that's the situation we are standing in and so I'm I'm sorry I can tell you more maybe next year I in in May latest but we'll see sorry okay then a question do you have the profile of those who shifted to the 28 hours option for two years yes and is there a risk of a gender bias no yeah that's an interesting question um because um yeah this this has a lot of dimensions no we don't have a real profile um but yeah my my impression is that uh these are not only women which is very easy because we are talking about a sector where uh I think 18% of women are working so if we make working time policy and if we make uh policies for more work-life balance actually we are doing this for men I mean it sounds strange but uh it's it's just depending to the people working in the sectors um so these are definitely men taking it but we can see that the the 28 hours are taken a lot by well qualified people and also people with better wages of course because you don't get wage compensation in this model so this is what I said before people have to be able to afford it financially and this is of course so more an option for people who are earning quite well yeah I could complete it a little bit the very wide chosen option of the eight days instead of the 27.5 percent wage supplement this is really first it is a special offer because it's two days more worse than the the wage would be and it is the only the the transformation of a supplement wage into free time so it is no reduction in in the wage and the other option of 28 hours uh it is without wage compensation and so it is really a problem and in so far I think the the the question for the further bargaining is really how to get a wage compensation especially also for the people working in the lower and middle ranges of the wage no for the higher it's not a problem not such a problem but for this in the lower wages it's impossible without compensation okay then we have a next question what are the main political obstacles you are coming up against when it comes to implementation political obstacles I mean what's meant by this maybe the the political discussion the the the atmosphere in the media no actually I don't see so many political obstacles because the public opinion saw this this proposal of Iggy Metall very positive it was seen very positive by the left the parties and of course seen negatively by the right wing parties I would say but this is normal no I see the the real obstacles for implementing something like this are the employers because we are in a situation now that the the employers are not in peace with the last results of 2018 let's say they still see that this was a victory of Iggy Metall and so they are very very much in opposition to everything which is connected with working time reduction and especially with wage compensation so I think there are two big obstacles first obstacle is to reach an agreement on that I mean we are talking about an idea now we don't have a result yet so we will see what kind of result we will get we don't even have a demand so yeah and and the second obstacle is if we have if we will have a result then our experience is that we have like a second round in the companies to implement it we had this with with the 2018 agreement and I can imagine that we would have the same struggle in the companies again maybe if we have such a result but on the other hand let's see I mean the crisis leads to the fact that we have a lot of short working time schemes in Germany at the moment so companies are practicing this they get money from the state of course but this this short working time schemes will end next year and what then I mean maybe the economic crisis will be better then but we still are in the process of transformation of industry as I said before this will also lead to rationalization effects in the companies so companies will still have problems but not have the short working time schemes to deal with it so they will also need new instruments if they don't want to do mass layoffs so I think in the mid term or long term it could also be in the interest of employers to have instruments of working time reduction to to hold hold the things running let's say yes I think we had for example one of the biggest co-working of the enterprises of the automotive industry continental that proposed already to make this working time reduction but to make the compensation of the wages in the lower ranges why are the state no so that the employers had not to pay this so they have this idea no but okay in fact it's a question of distribution yeah I mean I think also companies actually have an interest in reducing working time because they see that this is an instrument to keep the qualified people on board in crisis and in the transformation but they don't want to pay for it they want that society pays for it and this is our job I think this is our job to say that working time reduction is a question of distribution of wealth and of money in the society and of course we go for for yeah just distribution let's say and it can't be the solution that the state pays the transition of the companies yeah okay so then we have a question just connected with this um is there a precedent for saving jobs through working time reduction with Iggy Metall and in the in the past how do you ensure that jobs are safe and how many jobs do you think could be safe I think it's one yeah yeah we we didn't count for the future how many jobs could be safe to be honest but um yeah as as margarita mentioned we have this prominent historical example of the 90s where uh Volkswagen did a four uh four days working week uh 28 hours week and um they safeguarded 30 000 jobs in the fauby uh company with this working time reduction which was a real success I think and if you look now I mean as I said before we are currently in in different negotiations and struggles in companies and we are we are already doing uh collective agreements for companies so called future agreements for companies and if you take for example uh the agreement for Bosch the agreement for ZF the agreement for Daimler they all have working time reduction elements and for ZF they counted and they said um well they they gave the opportunity to reduce working time up to 20 percent and this would safeguard in the whole ZF company 10 000 jobs the problem there is it's without wage compensation um so there is always a thing to improve I would say but um yeah as I said there are sufficient examples for for that it could help okay then um we come to a very important question um have you thought about joining forces with Friday for future and other ecological movements to politicize the issue of the four-day working week outside the workplace yeah sure yes um Iggy Metall is in touch with Fridays for Futures we already did uh common actions with Fridays for Futures especially our youth organization the Iggy Metall youth did uh common actions with Fridays for Futures and of course we don't have always the same opinions in details um because uh of course Iggy Metall is uh going for the interests of its members and uh these are the members and the big car companies and they are not always very happy with the uh climate goals for example um so this is a conflict sometimes yes but uh on the other hand we are uh united in the big issues I think and this is that we all see the the necessity that the transition and the transformation has to lead an an ecological path let's say so um yes Iggy Metall is trying to connect with other organizations in these questions and yeah as I said before I think we have to try to to fight inclusive uh struggles and not uh everybody for him or herself okay so many thanks Sophie so we have to finish this first round of our panel I can only answer to one question in the chat there are also other trade unions in Germany who are uh going on with uh working time reduction for example the trade union of the trains or the trade union now in the public traffic they try to begin to go into a first step to working time reduction too but in a different way not with this uh open four days demand okay yeah I'm I'm really sorry that I have to leave because I I would love to hear what the others have to say I will be back tomorrow okay okay other thank you very much conference and up to tomorrow yeah so then we now come to our second uh good example this will be presented by Gudmundur Haralsson Gudmundur is researcher of the Icelandic think tank Alda Alda is a think tank especially concerned with the issue of local democracy and in its um topics they have also working time reduction as a precondition of political participation and now I give the word to Gudmundur to see this yes we can see and maybe could you speak a little bit louder a bit louder is that better yes okay so yes my name is Gudmundur I'm a representative of Alda Alda is a think tank we concentrate on democracy sustainability and include working hours working hours is a precondition of course as Michael said for democracy we have time for that so I'm going to present to you trials of shortening of working hours that was conducted in Iceland for a number of years that has now led to contracts basically so let me begin so just a little bit about Iceland there's a country of 356 000 they've been market of 200 000 relatively small country um there's high workforce participation 87 percent and 75 percent working full time average working time is 44 hours a week which is considerably higher than our neighboring countries that we usually compare ourselves to the other Nordics and working duration of working life is quite long 47 years which is the longest in Europe um and however our ggp and living standards are very high and have been for quite a while so that way um it is a service and export to an economy with all the characteristics of advanced economies lots of digital services and so forth so in summary it's an advanced economy we have high living standards however our working time is high long and we have households whereby um everyone basically might be working full time but there's still everything to do within the home um so this can lead to imbalance in work life situation and uh this is actually pronounced if you look at authorities such as OECD you will see that um Iceland is doing poorly in work life balance has been for quite a while there are older studies let's show the same trend so um Alta's position has been in essence that we have all the capabilities to do better here that we can try to be a little bit more efficient with how we spend our time and uh and gain a bit of more productivity but use that to shorten working hours and gain more work life balance and we view this as a first step in a much longer program um which maybe is slightly more complicated to explain but uh yes so this is for us this is only a first step so i'm gonna switch to the trials themselves um so for a decade or so there has been increased public discussion on working hours in Iceland um Alta has participated in this we hosted a conference last year for example beginning of last year there have been articles reports Alta has published one report and really um increased awareness of um that that you can work less you can have less stress and burnout as a result that you can you can still have high living standards even though you work less there is more public understanding of this and increased in politics as well Iceland is historically a country of of long working days this is a old trend so um in around 2014 BSRB which is the confederation of public unions that's the largest one in the country proposed a trial with Reykjavik city council Reykjavik is the capital and the government to trial a shorter working hours the idea was to study effects on productivity and wash life balance to see if study if it was actually possible to reduce hours but still maintain same services same output in the workplaces still do the same things um yes this was actually agreed to by the Reykjavik city council and the finance minister so um this is a rough timeline of the trials and you can see you know 2010 then 228 leads to new contracts it's a long time 2015 the regular trial actually starts with 66 participants it included the service center child protection service and the next year the first results are in and they are positive so more workplaces join that point about 280 participate year after that the government trial starts with 800 participants included the tax office police station our registers and so forth the trial Reykjavik was extended the next year so 2500 people were participating in 100 workplaces 2500 is more than one percent of our workforce so on the scale of Iceland it's a big trial the same year the government trial was extended and a hospital department joined the point of having a hospital department was to study the possibility of shift our workers joining such a trial and how to make that function it did and so in 2018-19 there was a number of studies final results and a conclusion of the trial basically 2019 and 2020 new contracts nationwide were signed and they included shorter working hours and four thousands of workers in many different sectors public private service production etc also healthcare so the shorter working hours in practice they were guided by committees these were large trials and they were they were they're trying to find a way to do this this was a bit new to people in a way there was no reduction in pay all workplaces had to apply except for the first two workplaces which were handmade those workplaces that applied they had to demonstrate a ability to maintain services there was criteria for eligibility in the government trial so these were two different trials one at the regular city level and one at the government level they were slightly different but mostly the same and the strategies for shortening of hours worried some workplaces offices this included shortening meetings simplifying processes rethinking how things were done etc in workplaces where there were shifts these shifts were changed if there was an opportunity for having maybe less stuff at certain time this was done so that people's shifts would end sooner or begin later and those you can shorten their shifts reduce the working hours but still maintain same service just choose basically to change the shifts depending on circumstances so there was no single template really it was it's different between all the workplaces and these workplaces were so different by nature that this really was necessary also the number of hours your stand worried so they could be one two three four or five hours a week depended on workplace there were a number of studies qualitative quantitative both focusing on workers and managers these were group interviews questionnaires individual interviews and they focused on work-life balance stress levels home life communication the side effects of the trials etc the the point was to gain understanding of the impact of these trials and possible side effects as well so there was actually a whole stack of reports on this there's there's hundreds of pages of material so the results were well let's begin with a myth there's no shortening of hours only lengthening lengthening of overwork this was propagated in Iceland here by the employer associations before and during the trials but this did not materialize people actually work less the numbers because they kept track of how much people working the numbers show this this was confirmed in interviews and I should note that in these interviews managers were not present unless they were contacting interviews with managers so people had to try to make sure that people could speak freely the researchers were independent academics the workplaces were able to provide same services maintain similar same service as before the idea was not to reduce service there are some exceptions to this for example in one place they changed the opening hours and probably and they actually reduced the hours of opening at the time when it was least used this did not have the effect on how well the service or how well the service was thought of by the users they that was okay so there was positive effects on low work-life balance people people actually felt that they could it was easier to go through their daily lives to do their work and actually do their maintain their homes and and do everything you need to do in regular home life there was a man participated more in home duties this was noted by pretty much everyone there was positive impact on other family members less stress interestingly and positive impact on burnout symptoms people actually said repeatedly we just have more time and they so generally the effects were positive if they were not positive they were mostly neutral and in some cases they were negative of these measures mostly that some people felt there was a bit more speed everything happened faster there's just shorter time to do everything at work and this was not a big factor it was was noted most people were happy and wanted to maintain and continue this the general atmosphere was well if they're going to stop this trial we will we will protest so yes people really wanted to continue this they felt this is a significant change for their lives impacted their lives so in 2019 and 2020 after long negotiations particularly for bsrb it took a whole year to negotiate they signed contracts the trials did help the unions to negotiate and as they could give good reasons for why they should implement shorting working hours they had concrete examples implemented however the number of hours shortened were variable they were not always the same and there were two forms of shortening that are common so there's flat reduction that everyone gets for example nine minutes a day 45 minutes a week flexible and then additional shortening by two hours a week or some minutes a day flexible again implementation and the workers proposed a strategy to implement this they might have to give up for example their coffee breaks so that they actually do get coffee breaks but these might be at irregular times people have commented on this and actually say in practice it may not be such a big factor it's because you get to leave earlier anyway so but the numbers worry and the above is an example there were dozens tens of contracts they all differ so there's no single model for implementing shorter hours this is flexible for each workplace bsrb is probably the largest winner in this round of negotiations for regular daytime workers their hours went from 40 to 36 per week which is a significant change shift workers from 40 to 36 and even if possible to 32 hours also for shift workers their work outside of the daytime amounts to more so 80 percent work in the night leads to 100 percent pay so all hours outside of the daytime count to more importantly pay was not reduced because of these contracts so yeah we have a bit more information on our website and these contracts and how they're implemented there's also information about a conference we had last year yeah so basically this is okay so I thank you very much good mundur for this great experimentation and I think there will be a lot of questions let me see I just can't see no question but maybe then I can put one question myself it's interesting it's amazing that they got this working time reduction without any pay loss but what's with the loss of stuff or no there is a full compensation of the wages but no compensation of the staff there's no no there was no reduction in stuff no and no no no no not reduction of stuff but the reduction of the working hours yes needed compensation in more stuff when you don't want to have more stress yes in some workplaces I think for example in the hospital department they increased stuff before starting the trial and they did this also in the regular city trial some places they increased stuff before starting the trial this was needed anyway to maintain services and provide reasonable working conditions for people so it does need it anyway but they then they commenced the trial and workplaces that did not have sufficient number of workers to maintain service after the trial they did not they were not allowed to join so they had to demonstrate that the current number of employees were on shorter hours could actually maintain the same service if they could not they were not allowed to join but yes in some some places some cases they there was increased stuff not always because as you maybe know this was the crucial point in this famous example in Götterbach in Sweden they were the first to wear a municipality made this working time reduction from eight hours to six hours with full compensation of wages and also with compensation of stuff and because this is not it costs a lot and this was the reason why the next government of Götterbach who was a conservative government deleted this wonderful experiment yes yes exactly so the trial in these trials in Iceland that did not lead to a direct increased cost they would have needed to add more stuff anyway but this is a this is a real headache this is correct and in a new contract the new contracts will lead to increased costs they will need to add stuff so they can shorten people's shifts in the night for example but this is you can on the other hand argue that you know this this was needed anyway because people working night shifts they have well more sickness and they live shorter lives you have to compensate people that do night shifts it's a very difficult thing for the for people to work that kind of life both socially and physically you can you can argue that increased costs there is actually leading to better people's lives in a way okay then I have now the question to you what do you see for the future of working time reduction in Iceland do you see more campaigning for further reductions and do you see also other maybe not only in this public service of Reykjavik so what depends on scales I see I can see that we actually choose to well I can see private companies introducing voluntarily shorter hours but there have been a few companies doing this with success the one company went to 32 hours a week without any reduction in pay with and it was a great success less sickness and increased performance and the company maintaining income as usual I can see more private companies doing this voluntarily I should note that these contracts actually bind a lot of private companies too short in hours so they're not excluded from this but I can see more private companies going this route just simply to provide better work-life balance and making their workplace more attractive place to work on a more macro scale I what I vision is and we vision is basically working less and consuming less so that we use the methods we have the technology we have to reduce working hours and and use the high productivity to live to work less but consuming less in time or over consumption is a problem really but this requires as has been mentioned here redistribution so not something very easy and there is the next question concerned in some sense to that is there also beginning a more general movement maybe led by a law or a political party and is there any any plan to organize this more radically maybe in the direction of a four-day working week so politically there politically this started even before before the trials in 2000 I believe 2011-12 a bill was proposed in parliament on the short term of the working week who I believe 36 hours from 40 so the legal working week here is 40 this bill which reduced it to I believe 35 or 36 it was never put into law but it has been proposed a few times by the Icelandic pirate party so yes there are some interest in politics however most politicians they distance themselves from this they this may seem yes it strains but here politicians often have the line working hours and working conditions is not a matter for politics it's for unions and employers to decide which is very interesting if you look at for example laws on working conditions so yeah this may be changing and this requires changing in terms of building a movement for example for a four-day week I thought about that there's no movement currently but there is widespread consensus that we need shorter working week but yes I've been I've been wondering about starting some kind of campaign for four-day week I just don't know how to how it should look like so there was not a huge outside of the working place mobilization for this working time reduction amongst students or political parties or women so I would say this was maybe not huge no but the unions took this on they you know got it to a conclusion what helped what really helped this was that the time anyway the economy was booming and things were going well private debt was going down and there was more profits for companies etc so that you know the economy there was no crisis in the economy so it was easier to discuss these things and get a movement get things moving there has been some interest from politicians not a lot maybe I would say it is the pirates that have been least afraid of talking about it and doing something about it while the other ones tend to distance themselves a bit the associations and lobby groups have commented on the bill they have tried to raise awareness but I think the unions had the largest share and really got this moving okay because you know there are some social democratic prime ministers like in Finland or in New Zealand who are really openly speaking for the four days week okay but there is the offer of the people we have in our membership here in the network of the four-day working weeks campaign in UK to help you to support you in in these questions maybe yeah that would be cool yeah okay so then question did the duties of women in the home really reduce in this experience? the response to this was a bit mixed in some cases people said yes it was reduced sometimes it said no so it was a bit mixed but yes a lot of respondents did say yes to this okay some cases they said no you know my husband is just acting the same as before he didn't change and some cases said yeah he's you know he's now when I come home he's always you know been doing stuff amazing okay then did also private sector companies introduce reduced hours? private sector companies yes in this so the contracts the unions here make are cross-sectional they are legally binding for private and public the same contract can can stretch to both public and private public institutions and private companies so yes they do encompass private companies as well one large union of office workers and shop workers for instance they they they got a very good contract that that does legally bind private companies to shorten hours okay okay then the last question are the reports on the results of your researchers available in English? yes so most of the I think all of the studies published on the trials and cells are in Icelandic however Vi and Alta have been working with autonomy along with B.S.R.B. to produce a report in English on these trials and we want to get that out hopefully soon um this would be a summary of the trials summary of the results methods used to shorten hours quotes from participants details of which workplaces participated timeline more much more detailed timeline than I was I put forward there so there something is coming okay that's wonderful so I thank you very much good Mundur for this report and we are glad to see that Iceland is beginning to move so far thank you and then I give the word to Maksim Nis Maksim is working in the trade union for the public services CGSP and this trade union is part of the socialist trade unions confederation in Belgium and I suppose Maksim can explain us this much better than I can do and so you have the word thank you can you hear me yes all right thank you well first of all thank you for giving me the opportunity to explain you a bit how we in Brussels have one or even two projects running for a working time reduction so I hope I'll be able to inform you a bit more about this now first of all I'll just have to share my screen to see how this works yes it works perfect so I think you all know even from hearing that the the the Belgian political system and even the trade union system is a bit complicated so I thought I'd just explain you a bit just that I just inform you a bit of how our trade union system works so that so that you will be more able to to visualize and imagine how we work here so the oops next slide yes so the there are three major trade unions in Belgium which are historically corrected with a political philosophy of course so there is initially the the Christian trade union there is the socialist trade union and the liberal trade union these are the three basic and biggest trade unions now depending on the profession there are also other trade unions but specifically connected with the with the the profession of people there are specific specific trade unions in the military in the in the railway in the in the police force for instance but I myself am a member of the historically socialist trade union the general work federation of Belgium we use a lot of a lot of words and symbols here but that's because we are officially a tree lingual country Dutch French and German and well these are the the names and the symbols of our trade union in French and in Dutch so our socialist trade union on a national level is the FGTB RBVV in French and in Dutch the general work federation of Belgium and I myself am secretary of the CGSP ACOD which is the general central of public services I am a secretary inside this CGSP ACOD the general central of public services of the sector of the local and regional entities which consists of which is responsible for 19 municipalities and social welfare centers public hospitals inter municipal structure police departments different regional agencies amongst them net brussel which is responsible for the cleaning the streets for instance we are the biggest sector inside the ACOD CGSP of brussels now about the region of brussels it's a small region there are three different regions in Belgium the Dutch speaking the French speaking and brussels is a bilingual region Dutch and French so on a Belgian level there are more or less a bit more than if 11 million Belgians and in brussels we are a bit more than 1.2 million citizens one of the major the major problems in brussels is that there is an enormous youth unemployment so by youth we mean people youngsters who are younger than 25 years old the youth unemployment is just below 20 percent I mean that's that's one in five that means just a bit less under 240 000 youngsters people younger than 25 years on a scale of 1.2 million citizens that's quite an enormous rate here you can see a map of Belgium on your left side we can see the tree you can see the three different region Flanders which is Dutch speaking Goulogne French speaking so I'm a member of the brussels region just the little dot in the middle which is bilingual and on the right screen you can see in a small image of the the 19 different towns and there are two towns in Brussels which have implemented some degree of a working time reduction the first town I'd like to talk to you about is the municipality of Sint-Josternode and you can see the little black dot there on the the right in the middle of your screen which is also the smallest municipality of the region of Brussels so Sint-Josternode it's a very it's a small area so it's the smallest town of the 19 municipalities of Brussels but it's an extremely densely densely populated area there are on a scale of 1.14 square kilometers almost 27 000 inhabitants and different studies have shown that we have the same population density as for instance the Indian city of Calcutta so this is an enormous it's quite a small town but with an extremely populated which is extremely densely populated the population is also very young 20 percent of these 27 000 inhabitants have less than are less than 80 years 18 years old but it's also the poorest population of Belgium of the entire Belgian state the town itself isn't really poor but the population is very poor and so there is a lot of unemployment there on a national level our trade union has always since 30 or 40 years demanded the four-day work week for all workers so it's very important we always speak about working time reduction but we like to speak about a collective working time reduction why collective because for us it has to concern all possible workers in every possible profession so we always defended the four-day work week on a 32 hour level per week 32 working hours per week with the maintenance of course of a full pay of a full wage and with additional recruitment of new people new stuff just to compensate the extra work why because just we well there is of course it's no use to work less if you get paid less or even if you maintain if you get the same the same wage but if you have to do the the five days work in four days so people will if you do this somehow in the long run or even in the medium run you will get sick and you will fall in burnout so we maintain the we we really want a collective working time reduction but by maintaining of course the full wage and by with recruitment of new stuff new people just to compensate the extra work and just to compare these two these 32 hours per week which we ask in Belgium the general work week on a manual level is 38 hours but there is legally a possibility to to work up to 50 hours a week but officially and in general we speak about 30 38 hours a week so we've been asking for years to implement the collective working time reduction of course by maintaining the conditions that we we maintain for a full wage and that there are compensating recruitments on the on the in the workforce and in 2017 the the mayor of the the small village of Sint-Yost and Ode invited us invited the three trade unions for a presentation because he wanted to to present his idea to to implement the working time reduction and well we received a nice presentation which was called the beginning of a new utopia in Sint-Yost I like the name so the he wanted to to implement the working time reduction in 2018 but it took a bit more time so we were negotiating for about two years but not on a weekly basis so there are different working groups from 2017 till 2019 between the administration the political side and the the three trade unions and since the beginning of this year on the 1st of January the collective working time reduction was officially implemented so it's still quite new new and unfortunately we all know that the corona crisis came along and we don't have yet any statistics of well we know how people feel people are very happy but we did we don't yet have any official statistics showing that people are officially less sick for instance we hope to get some next year so about implementation since the 1st of January of this year it's it is a collective working time reduction because it concerns all workers from all different jobs and professions available in the in the administration without distinction but from 55 years so people who are less than 55 years unfortunately don't yet don't have a right to of a working time reduction but of course we are working on it and each year we are we will bring the subject up and well of course our our meaning is to lower the years if possible so it is in a certain way a collective working time reduction because it concerns all people of the administration all different professions and jobs but unfortunately yet from the year of 55 there was a compensation so of a new so new staff was recruited 20 percent new staff was recruited on the political level it was asked that whatever the cost was the service to the public of course had to be maintained and it's normal because we're we defend the public service so it's quite normal that the service to the citizens had to be maintained and the political on political level they they also wanted in exchange that we will we would be working on on on regular on intern papers to to be to be able to work from home instance to install teleworking the basic idea and it's the same there are bad well the same arguments that we already heard before the municipality the municipality wanted to offer a better balance between work and family for all workers from 55 years onwards of course the workers well it wanted the workers to be happier of course there's a political reason behind it because happier workers are normally spoken less sick or or less in burnout because they are more more motivated their productivity would increase and of course by an increasing productivity the citizen would also find out that people are happier and that the service to the citizen would increase too and of course on a global level by recruiting new staff it would also diminish the the unemployment rate in Brussels at a municipal level because we are always organized in at a municipal level and social welfare centers social welfare centers are smaller than the town halls but they work together they're basically the same institution but two different employers at the municipal level more or less six well there are more or less 600 workers and so more than one on five workers were concerned 121 workers were concerned at the time and they recruited between 22 and 24 additional people especially youngsters just to be able to compensate the extra amount of work since 121 people would work less work four days instead of five it would cost a bit it would cost about 37 000 euros per job per new job recruited and at an annual cost it would cost 900 000 euros but of course the basic idea is that it would be an advantage for the for the municipality because people would be happier less sick and in the long run it wouldn't cost that many so right now unfortunately we do not have any new figures especially due to to the covid crisis we don't really have actual figures to evaluate the collective working time reduction but we just know when we speak to the to our our members and the and the people that are extremely happy and well they feel much better than than before so in on the belgium level i already told you that the general work week was well counts 38 working hours a week historically the town of sintiost already had a small working time reduction because people there worked 36 hours a week instead of 38 and so right now with this working time reduction people are workers are at 28 hours and a quarter working time a week so i know the program only speaks of the the municipality of sintiost anode but i i i cheat a bit and talk to you about the other working time reduction which is not a collective working time reduction but another working time reduction on the level of brussels which is in a second town of brussels it's the little red dot you can see on the left of your screen it's a quite a large town the town of and so in sintiost anode the small town it was implemented on in january 2020 but in the town of anderlecht it was implemented in august 2018 it was just implemented on the level of the municipality not on the level of the smaller social welfare welfare centers which we're still discussing with the political authorities on that instead of sintiost sintiost in the first new municipality people work less from the year the years of 55 years in anderlecht it it's beginning from 50 years so each well most workers who are 50 years or elder not 55 have the right to to reduce their working time but unfortunately not unlike in the the smaller town it's not for all workers so it's just basically for the toughest jobs the physically speaking the hardest jobs manual workers people who clean the streets who collect the garbage the refuse in the streets so it doesn't concern all jobs from 50 years onwards it only consists of the physically speaking the toughest jobs in total it concerns 250 workers the total of 1500 and the system is a bit different because so in the smallest town sintiost people just work one day less but in anderlecht the political authorities just give 53 days well they give 53 more days of a year to the people who have to the workers who have the most tough job so it's a bit a different way of viewing they don't necessarily officially work less but they get 53 days of a year 53 days of more than than someone else a year which is basically a one-day week there were also 45 young people recruited just to compensate this extra work people of course maintained their their regular wage as if they worked for five days and the the authorities promised us that each year it would be possible to negotiate again to in order to increase the beneficiaries of course in 2020 due to COVID once again they didn't have financial means to increase the beneficiaries but well we hope that more people will be able to work less in 2021 and so right now also we don't have any figures unfortunately in order to to to evaluate the impact on the well on the well-being of the workers so that's it if you have any questions i'll be very happy to answer them i hope it was a bit clear that it wasn't too difficult or technical yes thank you very thanks maxim i think even if it's a complex construction everybody could understand it well and so i now will go to the question um here is the question do you know what they choose to prioritize working time reduction for older people and how is the question i'm sorry i didn't yes i have some difficulties to understand this question too ah why why in this experimentation they choose only elder people ah of course yeah of course well because it well they say of course that is it costs money and a decision had to be made or it was so they told us or it would not be possible or we will start with a certain category of people and then of course um as a trade union uh because right now we have to work in belgium until up to 67 years old we also had to uh to to ask the workers how they felt about it and the mandate which was given us was to uh to ask to implement it from a certain age onwards because of course well people who are uh who have been working since 20 25 30 years especially in hard physical jobs uh well it's more difficult for them of course to keep on working 38 hours a week so it was basically um yeah we had to make make a decision somehow and uh our present our principle was that it would be important to accept the the principle of the working time reduction or the collective working time reduction and then uh of course each year we would negotiate again with the political authorities um to hope to to be able to increase the amount of beneficiaries and um there is connected the next question are um these collective working time reductions in brazil uh for these uh group only perceived as a model uh for belgium and uh also uh to going would be my question also as a first step on the further um collective working time reduction for everybody well right now people speak about it and um it has been in the in the media in the mainstream media so uh most people know that it exists but right now honestly people don't speak about or on a political level people don't really speak about it much i do think that indeed the moment was a bit lost with um corona but of course in the second town in andrete it already samey exists since 2018 and people don't really talk much of it so i we are all a bit waiting on to get official figures i think um so that we can officially prove and officially statistics statistics so we can officially prove that um it's um the working time reduction has a positive effect on on um on the welfare of people and um yeah well we will we hope to get them soon but we don't have the have them at the moment but right now honestly people don't on a political level people don't talk a lot about it i do believe that also the political members of conservative parties just don't want to talk about them because the the two municipalities where it is implemented um are of a socialist signature there are members of the socialist political party um who are in the majority there so i do believe there is a political reason not to mention it further yeah and of course i oh yeah and then the question is how did the higher up authorities react on this experiment yeah what's the town of St Jos able to pay for the 900 000 uh euro additional code by itself well it it was yeah just didn't need the support of the general administration of Brussels or no well initially it was presented that uh the the mayor uh wanted to ask more additional means of the higher Brussels political level but we didn't didn't receive any additional information that he basically got the the money because if the higher political level gave him money well they would have they would have to give money to to the other municipal lead other municipalities too um so they didn't according to my knowledge get the necessary means from uh the higher political level but the town itself isn't really poor town people in the town are poor the poorest of all belgium but the town itself uh there are a lot of hotels or enterprises around the trading station for instance and uh they pay a lot of taxes so the town itself isn't really an extremely not extremely rich but it isn't an extremely poor town they'll say there was really a political decision to invest 900 000 euros in the working time reduction okay okay then next question is do you have a reaction of the younger workers well like always everyone is all right everyone is entitled to to to also ask to work one day less but of course our answer is that if we didn't accept it well you would just lose the principle so it was it was important to accept the principle and then just in order to open the possibilities um to negotiate that younger people would be able to uh to to um to make use of a four-day work week but indeed a lot of young people uh even young yes even people from who are 35 40 45 years old are often also working since 15 or 20 years they also have a personal family they also they also have um young children so of course they also want to um to be able to work less so unfortunately it was difficult to um to obtain something for everyone we were working on it but yeah we didn't obtain that fortunately and um have you also reactions of the younger workers who were um employed for this uh working time reduction not really but we know that well there is a lot really a lot of unemployment in Brussels and um our municipalities offer uh it's a correct wage uh people of the municipalities don't in Brussels they don't earn as much and as in uh enterprises for instance but there is a security I mean you get less chance of being um laid off for instance in the municipality there is also the principle of working for the citizen and not working for actionaries or uh to make money so um a lot of people like to work in our municipalities especially youngsters because they know if they work there that they will probably keep on working there for the next decades or perhaps even until their their pension so it's a positive thing they they really recruit recruited extra people and it diminished just a bit the the unemployment the the unemployment rate and uh can you say how many women and how many men could participate in under like well I don't have any statistics on that now in our public services generally there are a lot of women who work in our public services I would say it's about perhaps about 50 50 45 55 something like that um it's about even to my knowledge um okay then there's a question considering that the salaries of the participants were preserved and some previously unemployed young people were newly employed do you think this reduction scheme is negative for the climate at least in the short run I honestly have no idea um I like to say that a lot of people in Brussels is a small area and since there was a lot of unemployment in Brussels a lot of people who live in Brussels tried to get the job um in the in Flanders they're speaking part of Belgium or in Wallonia the French speaking part of Belgium and a lot of Belgians unfortunately they liked to use their cars so a lot of people tried to just to get a job elsewhere in another region because they they need a job and uh by creating more jobs in Brussels I hope that statistically speaking that it reduces the the impact on the climate because people can just get a job more or less next door and uh Brussels is more and more difficult to uh it's more and more difficult to use a car in Brussels because Brussels is basically uh saturated and a very small area especially with the European institutions for instance and a lot of people just use the public transport so I hope that by creating jobs next door inside the region of Brussels that it will reduce the the impact on the climate um then maybe uh uh from my side the question more generally um does the FGTB um have have a general reflection on this um connection of working time reduction and climate protection well uh there there is a uh uh part of the FGTB ABVV has um is very active in a in an organization a French speaking organization called the SETPAC which is basically also a think tank and it has launched some uh some very interesting studies about the the working time reduction so since a few years and I like the thing that perhaps what we succeeded to to obtain here has perhaps launched a bit the the interest again inside of our inside our national trade union but since a few years um there is again uh a larger reflection going on inside our trade union on a national level yeah so it's it isn't really the well it's it's it's basically formed in a in a think tank a French speaking think tank but it exists it could yet be be more yeah okay okay so then I thank you very much Maxime and now we come to the last round of our discussion and I think we now should reflect on the common issues and common problems of all the three examples and also of our common fight in all the countries um to bring further to bring ahead uh working time reduction and so um yeah I don't know if there is no direct question to this um maybe um okay um maybe I put a question um to all the um now uh Sophie is not present it's it's um it's uh sorry but okay but um I think in general we have at the moment um maybe uh because of corona a very um tense uh um situation because everybody is uh afraid to lose his job in some sense yeah and in so far um I'm not sure if we maybe could have a situation um where the idea of working time reduction to preserve jobs had could have a better reputation in the whole population uh because I think um the the fight for working time reduction will not be one when only the trade unions alone will do it yeah and so um my question is how do you think about the the possibilities in your countries to connect the fight of the trade union for this concrete working time reduction with the the general mood and the general trends in the population for shorter working time and are there any any trials any little uh corporations or like that should I begin yeah I think for Iceland using shorter working hours as a kind of way to say distribute wealth and distribute work I think it could be a difficult struggle uh people here are used to thinking that we should we just need new jobs that's the kind of default in politics uh I think it would be quite hard there'd be a very much new way of thinking for most people here um people here are used to turbulent economy uh but the kind of usual solution if you like is always to create new jobs and not to share what we currently have so um I think it would be quite difficult not impossible but it would take uh a while and how do you think Maxima well we as a trade union we are very active in the the civil society and we're active in a lot of social movements a lot of social movements also come get in touch with us to to ask if we can support support them in manifestos or in activities outside I like to think that Brussels is a bit like an experimentation lap of the entire of Belgium in its entirety and I think there is a lot of possibilities I think we're just waiting that perhaps someone takes the initiative to uh to get some to bring some people around the same table um because it remains quite theoretical there are thing things which are well publishing books about the subject manifestos but right now people a lot of people just there is a social crisis and just people want a lot of people just want a job because there are a lot of problems and I think we're just basically waiting perhaps for a few people organizations to to take the initiative to um to yeah I mean to to get around the table with different organizations and of course we would be happy to uh to to participate to participate in that and perhaps that we can use the our proper our own experiences on a Brussels level with collective time reduction in order to uh to well we could use them as a lap to see how it would be possible to to implement it in the all of Belgium for instance or even in Europe why not I think basically we're just waiting on some people we were well we're all active in a lot of uh movements and uh actions and well if some people would just get take the initiative why not yeah okay so it seems to be also a question of publicity of how you make public all your um trials in this sense for a broader public yeah so maybe I say something for Germany in Germany we have the interesting case that the trade unions especially the egemetall is going ahead with working time reduction but since uh let's say a year we also have in the political field not a few um voices um who are really arguing for reduced full-time work for example the the the um chief uh both chiefs of our left party are really um uh openly uh fighting for uh reduced uh full-time around the 30 hours per week and uh relatively new also the uh uh uh presidium of the uh social democrats is going in this direction and also of the green party some uh speaking like that and especially now in the corona crisis because we have this uh huge experimentation with the so-called Kurzarbeit the short time work what is working time reduction to save jobs with a compensation of wages by the state um but this is a real um working uh experimentation with working time reduction and so I think there are a lot of more or better preconditions at the moment than before okay um now we have some questions um have either of you had interest from other countries trying to do similar things um I'm not sure who is now the the address of this question in both we both are I think you said everything maybe the the question is if there are other from other countries in our public who maybe have um similar uh experiences or triumph would you find to to to go on I personally know that for example in uh the Netherlands they have uh uh big experiences with this uh elder to younger uh um exchange of working time you know that elder go uh earlier out or reduce some and younger are um employed for that um can I comment yeah okay um I just want to say that uh yes we have had interest from other countries particularly the the UK so um had some uh inquiries and cooperation mentioned the reports we're working with autonomy so we have yes we we've seen it's using interests definitely um but I think this trial in Iceland is not very well known in generally outside of Iceland well we didn't well get to my knowledge know what a country or city got in touch with us about it I don't think really uh it's really known that our two municipalities uh um have been taking on the project but I don't know if uh I think what's I think it would be interesting that if there would be a sort of um um organization perhaps on a European level or on a worldwide level which would just be be able to um to put different the different examples that we have together just so we can really have an exchange together about the the matter and we can learn from each other because now we we've all heard of the of the experience in Goetheberg for instance or in other places but we get them from social media articles books which which are often quite technical and um sometimes it's just not that easy to find all the information available and I think it would be interesting if we could just sit together with uh enterprises towns whatever uh who are experimenting with the with the four-day workweek or even less so that we can really learn from each other and perhaps communicate them in uh to the big world uh in on a not so technical way I don't know if I'm explaining myself okay but then I really only can invite you join our european network uh more frequently and use the european newsletter of um um on working time reduction maybe uh adrian you could put it again in the chat the link to get this newsletter because this is exactly what we are doing we try to connect people from all uh at the moment only 15 but in general we uh we uh have to go to have every or european country to bring them together who making anything with working time reduction and to exchange their experiences and how to look how to go coordinated uh for that okay then I have a last question is local government the best way to try a working time reduction and then to make it spread I have to admit I don't know it it's a bit different because of course well when you implemented in enterprises enterprises basically care about making money and productivity and perhaps they would implement it in a more professional way I don't know just to be sure that the productivity would increase um or this crucial for us and for the employers on a public scale is that the of course to the employer side that productivity increases but just to also to be able to um to um to offer a better public service service to the public beneficial or economical rendement is less important on the public side instead of instead of uh with enterprises so I honestly don't know perhaps I don't know um I think uh public trials in the public sector are a great way to um spread knowledge and kind of um raise awareness that this is possible um and how to do it maybe spread information on the practicalities um I don't know how well it spreads into the private sector unless through contracts or by law um I think it can be challenging to get private companies to voluntarily try this out on a large scale I think there's some kind of social force that's needed there but I think this is a public trials a good way to raise awareness I think mm-hmm from judging from our experience here anyway okay and do you know what what type of workplaces and jobs were eligible in for example also nurses or teachers or um um here in Iceland yeah so um the city of Reykjavik runs maintenance centers for streets lights their gardens they run play schools they um and care centers for people that need some kind of assistance so disabled or have some kind of social problems there are general service centers and all of these were eligible they could all join uh the city does not run a primary school or any or any school on a higher level that's government um and the city generally does not run healthcare facilities that's a state so um so in the in the city trial these could not join their routes out of scope but all you know play schools could join the maintenance centers could so it includes schools and maintenance and and so forth on a government level however these healthcare centers could join schools etc to manuals they did not they were either not selected or did not apply I'm not sure uh there was a lot of interest though um should well and there was one hospital department that did join so nurses would be included there and doctors mm hope that explains okay so um I think now we have to close this first panel I thank you everybody very much for your conferences and also for the question and now we will have a break um up to uh 4 30 so you have half an hour to drink coffee or do whatever you want and then we will come together to the second panel the place of the working time reduction in a post gross society yeah have a good break