Recording working time: The discussion goes into the next round
The recording of working hours is once again becoming the focus of public discussion: two motions are pending in the Swiss parliament that aim to further liberalize working hours.
On May 2, various online media reported on the proposals of Council of States members Karin Keller-Sutter (FDP, SG) and Konrad Graber (CVP, LU). Both aim to amend the Labor Act to give employers more flexibility in recording working hours. While Karin Keller-Sutter is calling for an exemption from the recording of working hours for "senior executives and technical specialists," Konrad Graber's parliamentary initiative wants to abolish the weekly maximum working hours, especially for individual areas in the service sector, and replace them with a yearly model. Not surprisingly, various employee organizations are up in arms against this. Trade unions in particular fear that such deregulation could open the door to the "exploitation" of employees. The Syna trade union, for example, reckons with "potential free labor" to the tune of 2.9 billion francs, as described in "2o minutes" was to be read. Council colleague and president of the trade union federation Paul Rechsteiner speaks in the "View"The "biggest attack on the labor law that Switzerland has ever seen".
The fact is, however: The current labor law dates back to 1966, a time when factory work was still commonplace. To date, it has been amended by countless ordinances, but has never been fundamentally revised. Since the world of work is set to change dramatically - especially in the wake of the digital transformation - a reform of the Labor Act is certainly overdue. The topic of working time recording must not be left out of this either. In the 4-2017 issue of ORGANISATOR, we already reported on the two parliamentary initiatives mentioned above and also interviewed experts from various fields.
Here go to the ORGANISATOR contribution.
