Goodbye Working Time? – How to assess P&MS’ performance?
DGB
Bildungswerk – Hamburg-Sasel
15
– 18 February 2010 (952-048)
This event had the support of the European Union
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Goodbye Working Time? – How to assess P&MS’ performance? DGB
Bildungswerk – Hamburg-Sasel
This event had the support of the European Union |
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The Education Department of the
European Trade Union Institute organised a joint seminar with
EUROCADRES “Goodbye Working Time? – How to assess P&MS’
performance?”, which was held from 16 to 18 February 2010 in
Hamburg, Germany.
Mr Carlo Parietti, President of EUROCADRES,
opened the discussions by stating the aims of the seminar:
To assess the impact of the crisis in companies and workplaces on the working conditions of professional and managerial staff (P&MS)
To exchange experiences and good practices at the various level of social dialogue and collective bargaining when it comes to regulate workload and working time for P&MS
The seminar gathered
representatives from 13 EU countries who used this opportunity to
identify common problems and discuss various solutions. There was a
large agreement that methods have to be developed to limit the
workload and working hours in order to combat stress and burn out
related diseases. At the same time there is a
demand from the P&MS to be empowered to adapt their working
hours to the specific life situation of the individuals.
Jean-Claude
Le Douaron introduced the activities of the European Trade Union
Institute and the programme.
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Combining history and the sociological
approach, Professor Di Nicola, from the University of Rome, explained
how the understanding of time and especially of working time has
evolved, providing the participants with a background picture in
order to facilitate further discussions.
Gerald Musger set
the framework o the discussion j by emphasising
that workload and performance can't be measured and controlled only
by working time indicators. Further more there is a growing demand
among P&MS for adapting working time and conditions to the
various phases of family life.
How flexibility can be combined
with safeguards for the employees was showed at the hand of two
examples provided by Raimund Palka from the Fequentis Works Council
and Rolf Smidt, Verdi.
(Those presentations can be downloaded from the Document section of this Web Site.)
According to Carlo Parietti a European Observatory on working conditions of P&MS could become a useful tool for social partners in the future. Such an Observatory would make it possible for trade unions and employers to identify and compare challenges and problems related to workload and performance.
Some userful links
EUROPEAN TRADE UNION CONFEDERATION - CONFEDERATION EUROPEENNE DES SYNDICATS
EUROPEAN TRADE UNION INSTITUTE - INSTITUT SYNDICAL EUROPEEN
INTERNATIONAL LABOUR ORGANISATION - ORGANISATION INTERNATIONALE DU TRAVAIL
