Working hours and new forms of organisation and employment: on the relationship of tension between flexibility and autonomy

Abstract

"In the course of the disintegration of traditional forms of organisation and employment, with lean production and lean management, with group work and forms of decentralized work as well as with the continuing erosion of the 'regular working day', flexible forms of work and working hours have become more significant again. There are high hopes of an employment-promoting effect as well as an improved competitive position for the businesses. In this matter one often loses sight of the consequences and side-effects that the modernisation of organisation and employment forms have for the work and task structures, industrial relations and in particular the workers. Here relationships between working hours and changed forms of organisation and employment are to be expounded and above all examined from the point of view of those affected. The mutual relationship between demands for flexibility and autonomy in the arrangement of working hours are the focus of attention here. To begin with, facets of the flexi-bilisation of working hours and developments associated with new forms of organisation and employment are presented. Taking as examples financial services, health services, information services and automobile production, variants of flexibilisation are explained and are analysed with a look at the area of tension between flexibility and autonomy. It becomes clear that the arrangement of working hours and measures aimed at changing organisation and employment forms come together in company flexibilisation. Furthermore it can be seen that an arrangement of working hours which is aimed at a high level of flexibility and is oriented towards autonomy does not go far enough in new forms of organisation and employment, for if it is separated from an arrangement of the contents of work, it holds risks for the necessary development of the worker's autonomy." (Author's abstract, IAB-Doku) ((en))

Cite article

Büssing, A. & Glaser, J. (1998): Arbeitszeit und neue Organisations- und Beschäftigungsformen. Zum Spannungsverhältnis von Flexibilität und Autonomie. In: Mitteilungen aus der Arbeitsmarkt- und Berufsforschung, Vol. 31, No. 3, p. 585-598.