– the dialogue

This public discourse has been accompanied by diverse political platforms that are being used for exchanges of views among politicians, social partners and other social groups about the fundamental questions posed by the future of work.

One way the debate has crystallized has been around the so-called fl exibility compro-mise. The very tone indicates here that this is about balancing various interests. Espe-cially when it comes to the topic of fl exibility, the needs and wishes of companies and employees can vary sharply. Digital technologies such as the cloud, smartphone and tablet enable freed-up working. But they also lead to the fact that the dividing lines between work and private life in jobs that fundamentally enable mobile digital work-ing and uswork-ing the home as offi ce are disappearwork-ing. This must not become a problem at all costs.

Scientifi c investigations demonstrate all the same that these new types of work like

‘home-offi ce’ are by and large unregulated. Result: longer working hours and – in the great majority of cases – unpaid, but invisible overtime. Add the phenomenon that, es-pecially in knowledge-based work, it’s often only the result that pays (indirect control).

The objections that employees should reach are more often than not set unreachably high – also, because they themselves have too little infl uence on fi xing working hours or tasks. Yet many employees are expected to be available for work in their time off periods.

The DGB and its member unions therefore demand a package of reforms giving more working time autonomy: besides the protective framework for health the legal frame-work for more autonomy over the number of hour’s one frame-works should be expanded.

The Federal Employers Association (BDA) has so far refused to go down this route although in many fi rms a modern working time schedule has long been recognized as a way of retaining and recruiting skilled labour as well as raising productivity. The discussions around the „fl exibility compromise“ were instead overlain with employer body demands for greater fl exibility in time-off periods and an extension of the daily upper limit on working time. The striking point here is that most of the argument is seen from the employees’ side. Thus it should be possible for a woman employee to go home early in the afternoon to fetch her child from school and go back to working in the evening when the child is in bed. Such a model is rendered diffi cult because the legal time-off period (11 hours) cannot be stuck to. Yet there should also – according to the employers - be no problem to check your emails late on ‘after going to the cinema’

(basically not really working). Such attempts to reduce or pick apart time-off don’t just contradict scientifi c fi ndings – it is also more than questionable whether these efforts truly refl ect the interests of employees.

27 Given this discussion the labour and social affairs ministry (BMAS) in its White Paper ‘Work 4.0’ proposed an exemption clause in the law on working time.

This should be tied above all to the condition that both bargaining sides have to agree to such an exception. The paramount question is whether any soften-ing of legal standards by collective agreement can brsoften-ing any adsvantages for employees. Unfortunately, the White Paper proposal gives no such indication.

Any relaxation of working time legislation that one-sidedly aims at loosening up time-off periods and daily limits to working hours, is not the way to go. The DGB and its member unions reject out of hand any weakening of working time legislation.

The White Paper Work 4.0 makes great play of binding collective agreements, albeit in the context of possibilities for greater deregulation and fl exibility. Col-lective agreements, however, should not be allowed to be used as a tool to un-dercut legally-defi ned minimum standards. This holds especially true for legal protective measures with which the risk is that their previous protective func-tion no longer counts.

Working time legislation already offers, on the contrary, a very high degree of fl exibility. All the same, the legal protective function must be renewed in a highly dynamic working world. The White Paper, however, lacks any concrete problem-solving approach. The proposal for a greater emphasis on advice and chaperoning as opposed to controls and sanctions from supervisors goes in completely the wrong direction.

Modernising co-determination is also a paramount future issue. So far, con-crete démarches for working as partners to master the digital transformation are lacking. The proposal for extending the participation/co-determination structures seems, given the scope of structural changes, pretty half-hearted.

Those for strengthening the negotiating hand of works and personnel coun-cils in the White Paper are even more reticent. Within the dialogue process it’s often stressed how important employee participation in the process of change is. That’s good and important. But participation can in no way replace co-de-termination since the latter rests on a legal basis and lays the groundwork for negotiating processes on an even playing fi eld. Not least co-determination is an important aspect of how to deal with individual-related data for work in the digitalized world.

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Participation can in no way replace co-de-termination since the latter rests on a legal basis and lays the groundwork for negotiat-ing processes on an even playnegotiat-ing fi eld.

The discussions around „Work 4.0“ since April 2015 have underlined that the new challenges in particular regard-ing career development are determinant for employ-ment prospects. Thus, there is widespread agreeemploy-ment that gaining qualifi cations/skills and vocational further training must be given an utterly new status. The White Paper, however, remains open about how to adapt,

ex-tend or reboot the vocational competence of employees in meeting the new challenges. Making good vocational retraining requires more time, money, and propositions that match up to the sheer variety of challenges on the labour market. This in turn requires political backing. The White Paper proposal to ex-pand the further education infrastructure and skills advice for employees is a fi rst and important step.

What’s required now is rapid clarity over the political will to push through sup-port and fi nancial backing for boosting career opsup-portunities for women and men through further education & training. Thus, the White Paper’s prospective legal entitlement to further training must be put into effect. This embraces issues such as leave, continued remuneration and funding of measures in an agreed ratio that are of benefi t to workplace and individual. One must take care that the very people without access to adequate fi nances or available time are

29 supported. A special focus should be put on fi nancial supporting agreed solu-tions by negotiation.

At the same time, efforts to help the jobless and poorly qualifi ed are especially required. Meanwhile, one welcomes some of the elements discussed in the White Paper for buttressing the protective function of unemployment insur-ance that have been turned into concrete political proposals.

When it comes to the digital transformation, the scheduling of working time taking account of health and safety protection is another determinant dimen-sion. An important approach is the legal right addressed in the White Paper to temporary part-time working with relaxation of the top-up entitlement. Such a legal entitlement can help to create more latitude for employees and imple-ment these rights. But the same thing should hold true for the autonomy of employees. Here legal entitlements to enact the staff’s working time wishes (such as for temporary part-time working, for activating the entitlement to be unavailabe for work or when and where one works) as well as improved co-determination rights to more working time autonomy help. It’s inadequate that the White Paper contains no further-reaching propositions for managing the digital opportunities for mobile working such as the duty on employers to document working time spent travelling or at home.

The situation regarding „work on demand“, that’s addressed in the White Pa-per, albeit without any concrete plans for dealing with it, is especially critical.

Those affected earn with this type of work mainly very little since the time spent between stints of work goes unpaid. Moreover, they have to put up with substantial restrictions on how to plan their lives and time-off. One sensible possibility would be to eradicate „work on demand“. At the same time, one must ensure that so-called zero-hour contracts are inadmissible. Another vari-ant would be to at least ensure ready-and-available times with ‘work on de-mand’ are paid for.

The White Paper treats the topic of opportunities and threats that may arise through the use of digital platforms in the supply and offer of services. With the development of new business models within platform working (crowdwork), a grey zone between self-employment and being an employee can be observed.

What’s more, the empirical data about platform working as an element of

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porting on the world of work’ should be improved. The prospect here is that new protective concepts will be drawn up that above all should be „tailored to suit employee-like self-employed“. One welcomes the fact that research on platform working will be stepped up. This does not absolve politicians from the continuing need for regulation – especially as platform operators in ser-vices refuse to take on any function as either employer or contractor. There-fore, one must sharpen up the concept of employer and employee to halt any dumping with regard to remuneration, social insurance, health & safety protection, working hours and quality assurance. The borderline between di-verse forms of employment to avoid bogus self-employment and the abuse of employment contracts (‘Werkvertrag’) should be more strongly enforced.

The concept of employee must include the protection of private and commer-cial dependence. In fi xing the status of employee the burden of proof must be reversed. This also helps fair competition. The DGB supports the proposal in the White Paper for setting social standards here too. Platform operators hereby must take on a special responsibility. They must also contribute to the costs of social security that fall on the self-employed

who are active with them. The White Paper proposal to include one-person operators in the state pension scheme is welcome in sofar as there is a share taken by the contractor and the level of the contribution to state health insurance is carefully examined.

The White Paper Work 4.0 sets out the aspiration of managing the transfor-mation of the employed society politically. That is important. Paid work should also in future be at the centre of social integration and guarantee participation as well as social mobility. Political guidance of this digital transformation must however from now on not lose sight of currently disadvantaged groups pushed outside a divided labour market. Thus the unfair starting point of many people who have been forced into precarious working conditions such as mini-jobs, sub-contracted working, temping, or improper employment contracts should be improved via political initiatives. The same goes for people who have been left behind through work-related illness and long-term unemployment. And the hurdles that prevent women from accessing the labour market with equal rights must be removed.

Political guidance of this digital transforma-tion must however from now on not lose sight of currently disadvantaged groups pushed outside a divided labour market.

31 The objective of extending the welfare state is welcome. But neither the ne-cessity for nor societal acceptance of a system change towards unconditional basic income is envisaged. The White Paper suggests the future prospect of a

„personal paid employee account“ as a „social legacy“, as a way of counter-act-ing the unequal opportunties at the start of one’s career. Financial incentives for more autonomy in managing one’s own cv are fundamentally welcome.

All the same, the idea of a „personal paid employee account“ set out in the White Paper remains very vague. Concrete enactment requires one above all to ensure a targeted approach to the special challenges of the digital transforma-tion for the future of work, particularly related to further educatransforma-tion. Therefore a ‘personal paid employee account’ should be aligned to this task.

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