A Job in France? No Sweat
Laws Banning Overwork Trim Executives' Hours
By Anne Swardson
Washington Post Foreign Service
Wednesday, December 9, 1998; Page A27
PARIS—In France, nearly all transactions between consenting adults are
legal -- unless, of course, you want to work.
As a recent government crackdown on workaholics illustrates, France is
virtually the only developed country in the world where it is up to the state
to make sure people don't work longer than the legal weekly limit --
generally 39 hours, not including overtime.
In the government's zeal to make sure workers don't overdo it, hundreds
of labor inspectors have been counting cars after hours in parking lots,
checking office entry-and-departure records and quizzing employees about
their schedules. The government has fined several large companies for
allowing employees, including managers, to stay longer than the country's
various legal limitations on the regular workweek and overtime allow.
Corporate executives say the crackdown illustrates the difficulties France
faces as it tries to adapt to a world of untrammeled international capitalism.
French companies, many of them recently privatized, have streamlined and
modernized and now produce some of the finest goods and services in the
world. But many executives say French labor laws are holding
corporations back. An upcoming four-hour reduction in the legal
workweek to 35 hours -- with no cut in pay -- is exacerbating the
complaints.
"We are in worldwide competition. If we lose one point of productivity, we
lose orders," said Henri Thierry, human-resources director for
Thomson-CSF Communications, a high-tech firm in the Paris suburb of
Colombes, which makes half of its sales outside France. "If we're obliged
to go to 35 hours it would be like requiring French athletes to run the 100
meters wearing flippers. They wouldn't have much chance of winning a
medal."
Thomson is fighting a $2 million fine for 2,000 overtime-law violations in
three months. The military-communications firm was nabbed when the
overtime police scanned employee entry-and-exit records generated by the
company's security-badge system.
The company was fined even though it had initiated a "work less" drive
among its employees in response to a visit by the labor inspectors earlier
this year. Thomson hired a consulting firm to help workers become more
efficient, and bosses told their employees to quit working so hard. Even the
electronic badge system was altered to shut down at 7:30 p.m.;
late-leavers had to sign a list and be shown out by a security guard.
Working hours fell, but not enough. Thomson, while saying it wants to
make sure no one works more than 10 hours a day or 46 hours a week,
including overtime, is contesting the fine in court as a matter of principle.
"The labor inspectors have a vision of work in the 19th century, where
everyone works in a factory," Thierry said. "It doesn't work that way.
When our engineers are in the car or on the Metro, they think about work.
How can you record that? Not to mention those who take their laptops
home."
Employees at many high-tech companies here take work home to keep
their employers out of trouble, smuggling laptops and cellular phones under
their raincoats if they have reason to think the labor inspectors are peeking,
according to the French press. Some companies now sound bells at the
end of the working day to get people out of the office, or close parking lots
at a certain hour.
Matra Marconi Space, a satellite-launching systems firm where 60 percent
of the employees are engineers, responded to a reprimand from the
overtime inspectors two years ago by implementing a new paperwork
program for its technicians. (It proposed a clock-punching system, but the
employees refused.) The workweek was set at 38 1/2 hours, and
technicians now fill out a form each week specifying how much they
actually work. They tend to log a lot of overtime as satellite launch dates
approach, but they get compensatory time off in return.
"The law is the same for all, but it doesn't apply in the same way," said
Remi Roland, a company spokesman.
Unions and labor inspectors say companies are overstating the case when
they claim that France is filled with executives dying to work more hours
than the laws allow, although they acknowledge that global competition has
put pressure on managers to spend more time at the office.
"The basic problem is a growing excess of work. These are real problems,
enough to affect the personal life of people," said Claude-Emmanuel
Triomphe, a director in the government's labor-inspection office for the
Paris region. "We think it's too much. It's not just us. It's because
employees tell us so. Five or six years ago, we got very few complaints
from managers. That has changed. The proportion [of managers who want
to work more] is much smaller than many companies would like you to
believe."
The current 39-hour legal workweek in France is comparable to other
European countries. Most employees are paid by the hour, with overtime
paid above 39 hours. As in the United States, certain kinds of
higher-salaried employees can be declared exempt from hourly pay, but
even they generally are limited to a 42-hour workweek. Executives can
work 46 hours if permission is obtained, but no one in France, not even the
most powerful corporate chieftain, is allowed to work more than 48 hours
a week. Or, with such exceptions as restaurants and delicatessens, on
Sunday.
"It comes from the labor laws of the 19th century," said Pierre Boisard, a
researcher at the Center for the Study of Labor in Paris. "Even a top
manager does not have the right to work more than 48 hours. It has to do
with security and public order. [The thinking is] for the social well-being,
the time of work must be limited."
In practice, French workers work a lot of overtime. Especially in Paris, the
day is long. People generally arrive at work between 9 and 9:30 a.m. and
take a long lunch, but they routinely do not leave the office until 7:30 or 8
p.m. For years, executives worked long hours, the inspectors ignored them
and everyone was happy. It was only last year, after a series of court
decisions ruling that work-limit laws apply to everyone, that the inspections
began in executive suites.
The Socialist-led government strongly favors the 35-hour workweek and
enforcement of the overtime laws. Still, Labor Minister Martine Aubry is
aware that the overtime inspections anger business people and make
France look silly abroad. And she wants to ensure that France remains
internationally competitive, an aide said.
When the government introduces legislation to refine the transition to the
35-hour week next year, there may be proposals to give managers more
flexibility over their working hours. But, said the aide, "we don't envision
creating a category of exempt workers like you have in the United States.
French law needs to retain protections. We have to find the necessary
flexibility, but if people negotiate more free time, why shouldn't executives
benefit along with everyone else?"
French Workaholics?
The French workweek is among the shorter ones of indus-trialized
countries.
Normal workweek in selected countries:
Country Hours
Denmark 37
Australia 39
France 39
Germany* 40
Italy* 40
Japan 40
U.S. 40
South Korea 44
Mexico 48
* Most unions have negotiated a shorter workweek.
SOURCE: OECD
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