Mara Yerkes & Jelle Visser
paternal leave arrangement. However, the new legislation on Flexible Working Regulations, which
allow working parents to reduce working hours under certain conditions, remains controversial
(EIRO, 2003c). The change in legislation allows parents with children under the age of six (or a
disabled child up to 18 years of age) to ask for changes in working hours and times and request
being able to work at home. These requests can only be applied for after 26 weeks of employment
with one employer, and are restricted to those persons bearing responsibility for the raising of the
child (EIRO, 2003c).
The new emphasis on family-friendly working policies is popular among employees, but unions and
employers responded with less enthusiasm. A recent government survey shows that nearly half of
the respondents find flexible working hours more important than other company benefits. One
third of those employees surveyed would rather have flexible working hours than a moderate
increase in annual earnings of one thousand pound sterling (EIRO, 2003b). Currently, the
government is focused on three goals within the work-family balance campaign. These include
focusing on sectors where the work-family balance is most critical, addressing the long-hours
culture, as well as providing assistance and guidance as employers and employees adjust to new
policies and regulations. In the UK, about one-third of all men and close to 10 per cent of all women
in employment work 48 hours (the EU maximum) or more; in Germany the percentages drop to 15
and 5 per cent, in the Netherlands to 10 and below 5 per cent respectively (data taken from the
European Labour Force Survey of 2001, Eurostat). While a considerable part of the long hours
culture is associated with self-employment, it affects a very large number of the dependently
employed as well. The current struggle between unions, employers and the government, and with
the European Commission, over the continuation of an “opt out” for individual firms and employees,
allowing longer working hours than those provided by relevant EU legislation, is directly related. It is
the flipside of the unregulated development of part-time work as a special marginal segment of the
British labour market. This certainly does not help to shape part-time work as a form of decent
work, even though with its disadvantages part-time work has the benefit of allowing a reconciliation
of work-family pressures during a particular phase in one’s life.
SOCIAL PARTNERS
Just as there was no explicit government policy to promote the development of part-time work, the
social partners did not actively endorse this work form either. The role of the British social partners
varies from the Netherlands and Germany. During the 1990s in the UK, collective bargaining no
longer took place on the national or sectoral level, and coverage of employees dropped to half the
levels in Germany and the Netherlands (EC, 2004). Only a minority of 35 per cent of all employees
is covered by collective agreements in the UK. In terms of content, company-level collective
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AIAS - UvA