Working time reform: Employers' president calls for weekly maximum working hours

German employers' president Rainer Dulger is insisting on a weekly maximum working time in Germany. "The scope of the European Working Time Directive is being used almost everywhere, except in our country," Dulger told the German Press Agency in Berlin. "If a weekly maximum working time were so dangerous, employees in Belgium and Italy would have to be lying in bed sick in droves.

In fact, their sickness rates are lower than ours." While the German Working Time Act limits daily working hours to eight hours in principle, the European Working Time Directive provides for a weekly maximum working time of 48 hours. In Germany, working hours can only be extended to up to ten hours with compensation within a six-month period.

Dulger said that even a majority of trade union members want a weekly maximum working time. "The Working Time Act comes from the era of teleprinters and rotary phones. It doesn't know about laptops or nursery school opening hours."

A draft bill is expected in the autumn

Chancellor Friedrich Merz (CDU) had made it clear at his summer press conference in mid-July that he expected a draft bill from Labour Minister Bärbel Bas (SPD) on working time reform in the autumn. The CDU and SPD had already agreed in their coalition contract to create the possibility of a weekly maximum working time, and the trade unions had warned of an end to the eight-hour day as a result.

Dulger also called for steps against abuse on the issue of inability to work. "Those who are unable to work should not suffer a financial disadvantage as a result. Our system works, and no one wants to change that. However, we did not create it for those who want to exploit the system," said the employers' president. The CDU and SPD had agreed in a coalition committee to abolish the possibility of telephone sick notes.

The obligatory submission of a medical certificate of inability to work from the first day of illness is to be introduced as a statutory rule - instead of, as previously, on the fourth day. A broad debate had erupted over the project. Dulger said: "The changes agreed by the coalition protect those who are really sick. This is how the system is protected from abuse."

It had nothing to do with distrust. "I trust my people - that's why I employ them," said the entrepreneur. "But a law is not there for the normal case, but for the exception. Otherwise, we wouldn't need rules, just goodwill."

Dulger generally reiterated his call for comprehensive reforms. However, the government currently lacked "a successful narrative," according to the employers' president. "As a result, it asks people to make sacrifices without telling them what for."