Union Strategies to Re-regulate Working Time

By Mark Thomas

The organization of working time is a central concern in today's labour market, as it is connected to experiences of work-life conflict, employment insecurity, and broader patterns of gender inequality.

The organization of working time is a central concern in today's labour market, as it is connected to experiences of work-life conflict, employment insecurity, and broader patterns of gender inequality. This article examines union responses to working time changes using a case study of four large unions, as well as a larger survey of working time provisions in major collective agreements. The article contends that working time re-regulation strategies include not only efforts to reduce hours of work, but also a range of strategies to promote employee-oriented time flexibility?. These working time strategies provide some means to address growing forms of work-life conflict and working time inequalities; however, these strategies are constrained by a number of factors, including employer resistance and the need for broader-based representational and collective bargaining structures.

(Just Labour: a Canadian journal of work and society. vol. 9, Autumn 2006)