Battling over a 35-Hour Week

By John S. DeMott

Germany weighs a dubious proposal to cure Europe's joblessness

For nearly a generation, many West European countries enjoyed very low unemployment. While the jobless rate in the U.S. was seldom less than 4%, the countries of the European Community and Scandinavia had just 2% to 3% unemployment. But since the first oil-price shock in 1973 all that has changed. During the '70s about 20 million new American jobs were created in high-tech fields and service industries. Yet in Europe total employment in 1983 was less than it was in 1973, and unemployment is now above 10% in several countries.

During the past few years one curative scheme after another has been put forth to create new jobs. The latest plan is to cut the work week to 35 hours in hopes of spreading scarce employment around. Last week one of West Germany's biggest labor unions began strikes in support of a 35-hour week with no cut in pay.

I.G. Metall, the 2.6 million-member union of metalworkers, called 13,000 of its rank and file off the job in the Stuttgart area. The result was a shortage of critical parts in the important West German auto industry. By the end of the week the stoppages engulfed 69,000 more of the country's 680,000 auto workers. Sympathy strikes could touch banking, public transport, textiles, insurance companies and the postal service. Audi, the luxury-car unit of Volkswagen, could be forced to shut down in two cities this week. BMW, the Bavaria-based car and motorcycle maker, has already closed two plants. Porsche and Mercedes-Benz might also curtail production.

Attacking joblessness by cutting the work week is an idea that has been around since the 1930s. In 1981 analysts in the Commission of the European Communities calculated that if every European worked one hour less a week, jobs would be provided for 2.5 million people. A cut of five hours a week, they figured, would end unemployment. Now the EC commission concedes that no evidence exists for its earlier optimism, and economists at the Center for European Policy Studies say the short week is "one of the more dangerous and depressing features of the current European loss of confidence."

Nonetheless, the proposal's simplistic appeal is strong. Politicians seize upon it to attract voters, and to give the appearance of doing something about joblessness. In Holland, where the commitment to the shorter week is strongest, the government has pressed for fewer hours by a formula that would also cut pay. Yet Dutch unemployment is still 14.9%, among the highest in Europe. In 1982 the new Socialist government of Franc,ois Mitterrand cut the French work week by an hour, to 39 hours, but it is backing off from a promise to lower it to 35.

Economists and business leaders argue that the shorter work week will result in little or no increase in the number of jobs. In part this is because more and more positions require skilled workers who are usually in demand. The only sure way to increase employment, say critics, is to increase investment. Herbert Giersch, president of the University of Kiel's Institute for World Economics, says that rationing jobs and economic planning will not cure the hardening of the arteries in the European economy that has become known as Eurosclerosis.

--By John S. DeMott

Reported by Gertraud Lessing/Bonn and Lawrence Malkin/Paris

With reporting by Gertraud Lessing, Lawrence Malkin