Working time reduction I: Collective working time reduction is long overdue

By Heinz-Josef Bontrup

[This article published on July 20, 2021 is translated from the German on the Internet, https://gewerkschaftsforum.de/arbeitszeitverkuerzung-i-kollektive-arbeitszeitverkuerzung-ist-lange-ueberfaellig/#more-11162.]

The articles published in the last issues of Sozialismus.de on the reduction of working time dealt more or less with individual changes in working time in the ductus of operational structurability of working time according to life course orientations. Within the framework of time and self-management, dependent employees want to work longer or shorter hours, depending on their life situation. The focus here is therefore on business management problems and not on macroeconomic problems. Therefore, capital owners, the "personified capital" (Karl Marx), and the claqueurs in politics, science and the media, can also come to terms with this.

There must only be an increase of the relative surplus value in production and thus further exploitation of the dependent employees must be ensured. And for the employees it is always understandable and comprehensible if they demand more freedom of organization in their forced labor determined by capital owners. However, a collective (macroeconomic) reduction in working hours is not only about the employees, but at least as much about the army of the unemployed.

And therefore about macroeconomic thinking.1Reduction of working hours has long been on the agenda In the labor movement, there have always been two demands or goals since the 19th century: More wages and shorter working hours.2 "Ten hours would be enough: that was already the idea of the Social Democrat August Bebel (1840-1913). In Bebel's 'Utopia,' described in his famous book 'Woman and Socialism,' which went through 53 editions in his lifetime! As soon as all capitalists have been expropriated, all those capable of work go to work - moderate, varied, productive work lasting two to three hours a day; in the remaining time, everyone pursues studies or arts or socializes, according to taste. "3 Karl Marx (1818-1983) and Friedrich Engels (1820-1890) had something similar in mind. And John Maynard Keynes (1883-1946) also got specific in 1930 about the reduction of working hours in the context of a fully employed economy: "(...) three hours a day are quite enough to satisfy the old Adam in most of us! "4 This is the right social utopia, to which Jean Ziegler says: "You can recognize a really good utopia by the fact that its realization seems excluded from the outset. "5 And Ingrid Kurz-Scherf writes: "Beginning with Thomas More in the 16th century, the great social utopias have always been connected with a reduction of working hours. And there the eight-hour day was first of all a pragmatic concession.

If you look at the great names of the political currents that are, incidentally, very hostile to each other, John Stuart Mill, Karl Marx or Keynes, you will see: they have very different opinions, but they agree on one point. The sense of the development of the technical progress is beside the increase of wealth for all the enrichment of the time; which is available to everyone. "6

Oskar Negt stated the following in an interview with the Wiener Zeitung in 2016: "There are alternatives. There are enough intellectuals who analyze the conditions in an astute way. And by now the deeper causes of the discontent, unease and anger of many citizens, which in many cases expresses itself in the support of destructive right-wing populists, are well known. Real existing capitalism is producing an ever-increasing army of the superfluous. More and more people are being forced out of the work process by ever more rapid automation. "7 And elsewhere Negt writes: "It is precisely a scandal (...) not to secure for millions of people the civilizational minimum for a human mode of existence: namely, a job, a concrete place where people can apply their socially educated labor skills in order to live from paid performance. (...)

When I speak of violence in this context, I mean it literally: unemployment is an act of violence, an attack on the physical and mental integrity, on the integrity of the people affected by it. It is robbery and expropriation of the abilities and qualities that have been acquired within the family, school, apprenticeship, as a rule, in a laborious and costly educational process, and now, cut off from their possibilities of social activity, are in danger of rotting and causing serious personality disorders. "8 It is interesting that another protagonist of a radical reduction of working hours, Oswald von Nell-Breuning (1890-1991), in the early 1980s, in a discussion with Negt about the 35-hour week, shouted the following at him: "Young friend, you are fighting for 35 hours. Yet ten hours would be quite sufficient if people used their resources sensibly. "9 And Karl Georg Zinn notes with Keynes with regard to growth and productivity the following: "Absorbing savings when there is no more net investment would be possible through government borrowing and/or through a positive net exports (or net capital exports), but the question is whether, in the case of loan repayments, creditors are willing and able to increase their consumption. Credit transactions between consumers do not increase consumption demand on a multi-year average anyway, but serve to postpone consumption over time. The (...) demand problem, which becomes virulent when net investment is zero but productivity growth continues, may ultimately prove insoluble. Keynes therefore argues for cutting the Gordian Knot of the demand problem, when and as it becomes permanent in highly developed, relatively saturated, low-growth economies, by shorter working hours. If Keynes's skepticism about growth is borne out by historical developments, the current aversion to shorter working hours, and thus the criticism of Keynes's future vision of declining working time(s), are likely to turn out to be quite short-sighted. "10

In this context, Fritz Vilmar (1929-2015), a lifelong friend of the unions, warned the unions as early as 1974, at the outbreak of the world economic crisis of 1974/75 11 not to direct all their energies now and in the future toward a collective reduction in working hours. Mere wage rounds would not eliminate the unemployment that had returned since the end of the 1950s - with all the counterproductive macroeconomic consequences, not least on the power of the unions in collective bargaining, which would thus also dwindle. Unfortunately, Vilmar was right in his prognosis. For a long time now, dependent employees and their unions have not been able to generate the at least distribution-neutral leeway within the overall economic value added - let alone to push through real income increases above the productivity rate with a redistribution effect in favor of the wage ratio. And the 35-hour week, which was finally implemented in 1984 but not until 1995 and not in all sectors, has long since been overtaken by economic reality in the direction of a 40-hour week.

The last union attempt to collectively reduce working hours failed miserably in 2003 in the metal and electrical industry in eastern Germany. In the eastern German steel industry, on the other hand, the 35-hour week was implemented, at least in stages, on June 7, 2003. After that, nothing more happened in terms of a collective reduction in working hours.

What are the facts?

The fact is that for 45 years there has been mass unemployment in Germany, causing billions in fiscal costs,12 which are higher than the much-maligned national debt. Obviously, in the past, real growth was insufficient for a fully employed economy. Indeed, productivity rates have almost always been higher. It is also a fact that in the world there is even much greater mass unemployment than in Germany, causing nothing but impoverishment, rural exodus and wars. Only in the EU are currently (Corona-independent) about 14 million people registered as unemployed. The actual number of unemployed is many times higher. This also applies to Germany, where the annual average registered unemployment figure in 2019 was 2,267,000 and the actual figure was around 3,200,000. If one adds to this the hidden reserve of around 1,000,000, the effective unemployment figure was around 4,200,000.13 Yet the history of capitalism has always been marked by unemployment.14 Full employment and profit interests are a contradiction.15 "The purpose of the increase in productivity driven by technical progress is, after all, precisely to save labor through capital.

Using the parable of the farm family in the United States,16 Wassily Leontief (1905-1999) shows how the substitution of labor for capital as a result of technological change can be transformed into social progress: When machines take over human labor for a given crop, the farm family has more time outside of work. Under capitalism, however, the harmonious relationship between labor and the owner of capital is impeded. Therefore, the economic-social task arises to ensure the participation in technical progress also of the employees by reducing working time. "17 However, this exactly does not happen. Productivity advances are not being adequately translated into reductions in working hours and wage increases. The unions have long been far too weak within the framework of collective bargaining autonomy to implement these two important macroeconomic necessities in collective agreements.

Without political help, distributional participation will not succeed in the future either. A statutory minimum wage, which at currently 9.35 euros is a poverty wage and is not even paid by many owners of capital,18 is not enough.19 One must think about this slowly: In one of the richest countries on earth, like Germany, there are now so-called "Tafeln" organized as associations to feed the poor.20 And the German Bundestag takes note of that and that's it. Furthermore, women are still discriminatorily paid much less than their male counterparts for equal work. The gender pay gap here is 21.0%.21 Last but not least, the state must constantly aliment dependent employees who work hard for 40 hours a week with child, parental and rent benefits, among other things, because the wages paid by the owners of capital are not sufficient for reproduction. Here Adam Smith (1723-1790) would only shake his head today. In 1776 he said: "A man must always live on his labor, and his wages must be at least sufficient to support him. In most cases it must even be somewhat higher; otherwise it would be impossible for him to support a family, and the species of such workers could not outlast the first generation. "22

The overall economic fact is further that from 1960 to 2019 the volume of work (despite reunification) increased only from 56.2 to 62.6 billion hours (by 11.4%), while the potential labor force grew from 26.3 to 46.5 million persons, i.e. by 76.8%. This means that today about 65% more people have to compete for the same volume of work than in 1960. This huge job gap could only be solved by unemployment and an increase in part-time and marginal employment at the expense of full-time jobs. The 5 existing jobs were distributed among more workers with shorter individual work hours. In 2018, of the 33,724,000 dependent employees in Germany, 6,691,000 (19.8%), or almost one in five, were part-time and marginally employed. In addition, there were 2,460,000 temporary employees and 925,000 contract workers.23 Part-time and marginal employment is predominantly women's work!

Against this macroeconomic backdrop, anyone who still seriously believes that it is possible to come even close to achieving the state of full employment that is so urgently needed, even in view of the expected technological developments, especially with regard to the digitalization of production and reproduction processes, is seriously mistaken. We must warn against the demagogues and polemicists who want to persuade the population that the problems at hand can be solved through growth and demographic change. And those who want to fight unemployment with an unconditional basic income must also be given a clear rejection here.24 These protagonists want, as capitalists practice, that other people should work for the basic income recipients.25A demand cannot be more capitalistic. But the post-growth ideologues must also be told in no uncertain terms that an economy without real growth degenerates into a misery economy and that there is no endogenous growth solution under capitalist (profit-driven) conditions.26 So the question of order must be discussed.

Another fact is that the huge never-closed jobs gap is depressing labor incomes. Every economics textbook tells us this trivial relationship. When there is a surplus of the commodity labor power in the respective sub-labor markets, there are no distribution-neutral wage increases. This theory is abundantly verified by empirical findings. Since reunification in Germany, a good 1.4 trillion euros have been redistributed cumulatively from 1991 to 2019 on the basis of the 1993 macroeconomic wage share adjusted for depreciation27 (59.6%) from the wages of dependent employees to value-added income and capital income (interest, basic pensions and profits). In this process, dependent employees received a total of 36,141.8 billion euros of the adjusted national income of 64,013.3 billion euros and value-added earners 27,871.5 billion euros. The average adjusted wage ratio was thus 56.5% and the value-added ratio 43.5%.28 This was accompanied by the development of a huge low-wage sector, in which today almost one in four dependent employees (almost 9 million people) has to work for less than 10.80 euros gross per hour.29

Former German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder (SPD) hailed the low-wage sector as a success for Germany. At the opening of the World Economic Forum in Davos in 2005, he said, "We have built one of the best functioning low-wage sectors there is in Europe. "30 Absolute value-added production still takes place here. Because the wage rate is so low, dependent employees have to work long hours in order to earn an income that can be reasonably relied upon for reproduction. According to Wolfgang Stützel (1925-1987), this leads to an abnormal labor supply reaction. Instead of offering less working time to reduce the labor supply, employees offer more working time, with the result that wages now fall even more.31 Another indication of the increase in working time and the simultaneous decline in wages is the sharp increase in dual earners in private households. According to the Federal Institute for Population Research (BiB), the share of couples between the ages of 50 and 64 alone has more than doubled in the last two decades where both partners have a job. While the figure was 29% in 1997, the proportion is now 66%.32

Urgent need for action

Against this entire background, there is an urgent need for action. In order to distribute the socially necessary working hours fairly, the economic policy agenda must include a "short full-time for all" (Hartmut Seifert). Full-time employment must be reduced and part-time employment increased. Otherwise, as has been the case in Germany since the mid-1970s, unemployment will not be eliminated and there will be a further decline in labor incomes and more and more precarious workers - especially in many service markets that continue to grow. We cannot wait any longer here and now, as Bebel writes, until the last capitalist is "expropriated." We must finally understand that the productivity increases that will continue to grow in the future as a result of technical progress must be distributed in reductions in working hours and wage increases. "The old production problem has basically been solved," Zinn writes. "What has failed so far is to distribute material wealth properly. Proper distribution will succeed only if full employment is restored. For the foreseeable future, we will continue to live in a 'work society' and this means that the majority of people must earn their standard of living through gainful employment. Therefore, the distribution question includes the distribution of labor. Seen in this light, unemployment is primarily not (any longer) a production problem, but has become a distribution problem. "33

A collective reduction of working time therefore demands here a full wage, personnel and financing equalization or an intrusion of surplus value. In the findings, in a real growing economy34 a reduction of working time with full wage and personnel compensation always implies a unit labor cost neutrality, no price increase (no inflation) and a distribution neutrality of value added. In addition, the profits of capital owners increase by the same amount as real wages increase with shorter working hours.35 However, this finding, which only produces winners, is still subject to criticism. If we ask who financed the reduction, we find that dependent employees finance the reduction in working hours themselves. The owners of capital thus participate zero in the shortened working time. Therefore, a scientifically based reduction of working time always requires a redistribution at the expense of the owners of capital and the surplus value appropriated by them in favor of labor income. But this form of a just social participation, in the values created by the workers, shows at the same time the whole difficulty of implementing the necessary redistribution under capitalist conditions of domination and ownership. And the difficulty will be even greater if an EU-wide solution to the working time question is urgently needed. But then we also know why there is no development in the collective reduction of working time. However, the "point of no return" should be recognized before it is too late, says Jürgen Habermas.36

Notes:

1 Cf. Bontrup, H.-J., Niggemeyer, L., Melz, J., Arbeitfairteilen. Overcoming Mass Unemployment!, Hamburg 2007

2 Cf. Kittner, M., Arbeitskampf. Geschichte-Recht-Gegenwart, Munich 2005

3 Prantl, H., "Demokratie muss gelernt werden, immer wieder", in: Bissinger M. (ed.), Demokratie lernen. On the award of the August Bebel Prize to Oskar Negt, Göttingen 2012, p. 46.

4 Keynes, J. M., 1930, quoted in Reuter, N., Wachstumseuphorie und Verteilungsrealität, 2nd ed. Marburg 2007, p. 143.

5 Ziegler, J., Change the World, Munich 2014, p. 157.

6 Kurz-Scherf, I., "Vielleich sind wir immer noch viel zu beschieden", in: OXI, Wirtschaft anders denken, No. 1/2019, p. 18.

7 Negt, O., "Multi-organ failure of the system," in: Wiener Zeitung, November 2, 2016.

8 Negt, O., Red-Red-Green in Trialogue: Are we creating left-wing majorities, in: Blätter für deutsche und internationale Politik, issue 12/2016, pp. 84f.

9 Prantl, H., "Democracy must be learned, over and over again," op. cit. p. 46.

10 Zinn, K. G., Zinn, K. G., Keynes' Growth Skepticism in the Long Run. Presentation and Reflections on its Current Relevance, in Kromphardt, J. (ed.), Further Development of Keynesian Theory and Empirical Analyses, Marburg 2013, pp. 83f.

11 Cf. Mandel, E., Wolf, W., Weltwirtschaftsrezession und BRD-Krise 1974/75, Frankfurt a.M.

12 Cf. Institute for Employment Research (IAB), IAB Brief Reports 14/2008, 04/2017.

13 Cf. Alternative Economic Policy Working Group, Memorandum 2020, Tab. A 4.

14 Cf. in detail Niess, F., Geschichte der Arbeitslosigkeit, Cologne 1979, Friedrich, H., Wiedemeyer, M., Arbeitslosigkeit ein Dauerproblem, Opladen 1998.

15 Cf. Kalecki, M. (1943), Politische Aspekte der Vollbeschäftigung, in: Werksauswahl, Neuwied 1976, Robinson, J. (1943), Das Problem der Vollbeschäftigung, Cologne 1949.

16 Cf. Zinn, K. G., Wie Reichtum Armut schafft. Verschwendung, Arbeitslosigkeit und Mangel, Cologne 1998, p. 18f.

17 Hickel, R., Kassensturz. Sieben Gründe für eine andere Wirtschaftspolitik, Reinbek bei Ham-burg 2006, p. 245.

18 Cf. Fedorets, A., Grabka, M. M., Schröder, C., Minimum wage: still many eligible employees do not receive it, in: DIW Weekly Report, No. 28/2019, pp. 483ff.

19 Cf. Seils, E., Lack of skilled workers or willingness to pay? An analysis of data from the DIHK, in: WSI Report, No. 41, August 2018.

20Cf. Selke, S., The new poor food. Der Boom der Tafel Bewegung, in: Blätter für deut-sche und internationale Politik, issue 1/2009.

21 Cf. Böckler Impuls 5/2919

22 Smith, A. (1776): An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, translated from English by Monika Streissler, Tübingen 2005, p. 143.

23 Cf. Arbeitsgruppe Alternative Wirtschaftspolitik, Memorandum 2020, Cologne 2020, Tab. A 3

24 Cf. Working Group on Alternative Economic Policy, Memorandum 2018, Cologne 2018, pp. 171ff.

25 Cf. Bontrup, H.-J-., Das bedingungslose Einkommen - eine ökonomisch skurrile Forderung, in Butterwegge, C., Rinke, K. (eds.), Grundeinkommen kontrovers, Weinheim, Basel 2018, pp. 114ff.

26 Cf. Bontrup, H.-J., Daub, J., Criticism that remains on the surface, in: OXI, Wirtschaft anders Denken, No. 5/2020, p. 20.

27 Depreciation, by way of explanation, is erroneously no longer included in the unadjusted national income of the national accounts. However, capital owners have recovered their capital employed in a distributive manner via depreciation amounts. In the case of a replacement price valuation of depreciation, this even includes inflation. This guarantees them the "eternity of their capital". Therefore, for adjustment purposes, depreciation must be added to national income and then the adjusted national income divided between "compensation of employees" and "business and property income."

28 Cf. Federal Statistical Office, Fachserie 18/Reihe 1.1, own calculations.

29 Cf. Grabka, M. M., Schröder C., The low-wage sector in Germany is larger than previously assumed, in DIW Weekly Report, No. 14/2019, pp. 249ff.

30 Schröder, G., quoted in: Ossietzky, issue 7/2013, p. 247.

31 Cf. Stützel, W., Marktpreis und Menschenwürde, 2nd ed., Stuttgart 1982, p. 75f.

32 Cf. https://www.welt.de/wirtschaft/karriere/article 192815051/double-earner, (accessed 6/29/2020).

33 Zinn, K. G., Arbeitszeitverkürzung gegen Massenarbeitslosigkeit, in: Kurz-Scherf, I., Breil G. (eds.), Wem gehört die Zeit, Hamburg 1987, p. 245.

34 A study of the German electricity industry from 1998 to 2013 shows how a reduction in working hours could have had a concrete effect here. Instead of destroying around 60,000 jobs here, all jobs could have been preserved if the then existing working hours of 35 hours per week had been reduced to 25 hours with full wage compensation. Cf. in detail Bontrup, H.-J., Arbeitszeitverkürzung in der Elektrizitätswirtschaft, in: WSI-Mitteilungen, Heft 6/2016.

35 Cf. on the theoretical derivation, Bontrup, H.-J., Lohn und Gewinn, Volks- und betriebswirt-schaftliche Grundzüge, 2nd ed., Vienna, Munich 2008, pp. 312ff.

36 About Habermas and his life, in: Frankfurter Rundschau from 18.06.2019.

The article was first published in: Sozialismus, issue 9/2020 Heinz-J. Bontrup https://www.sozialismus.de/