Reduced working hours : reshaping the duration, timing and tempo of work

Abstract

Timo Anttila tarkasteli väitöstutkimuksessaan 1990-luvulla toteutettuja työajan lyhentämisen kokeiluja. Suomessa 1990-luvun työllisyyskriisi nosti työajan lyhentämisen ja työn jakamisen vilkkaan keskustelun kohteeksi. Julkiseen keskusteluun nousi myös professori Paavo Seppäsen jo vuonna 1967 ideoima päivävuoromalli, jota 1990-luvulla alettiin kutsua myös 6+6 -malliksi. Tämä malli sisältää ajatuksen työntekijöiden työajan lyhentämisestä sekä koneiden, laitteiden ja tilojen käyttöaikojen pidentämisestä. Malli merkitsee muutosta kaikkien työajan keskeisten elementtien – työajan pituuden, ajoituksen ja tempon – suhteen. Anttila tutki yhdeksää teollisuusyritystä ja 17 kuntaorganisaatiota.

This study examines experiments with so called six-plus-six model (six-hour shift), which were carried out in Finland after a deep economic recession in the mid 1990s. The model includes the idea of a simultaneous reduction in individual working hours and an increase in production or service hours. The experiments were implemented in industrial companies and in public health and social care organisations. Six-plus-six model influences on all three main elements of time in work organisations: the length of working time (duration), the placement of working time (timing) and the use of working time (tempo). The main aim of this research is to show which are the conditions that explain the ability of organisations to agree and implement radical changes in working time and what forms of resistance to these changes can be identified? Another aim is to assess the sustainability of the six-plus-six model from an efficiency and social welfare perspective, both at the household and organisation level. The underlying question is how individuals adjust their personal and family life to the new working time system. The analysis is based on both quantitative (two kinds of questionnaire data) and qualitative interview data. Experiments in the private sector were divided into two groups. In the offensive experiments, the firms tried to reorganise working time more efficiently in order to facilitate competitiveness. In the defensive experiments, the firms aimed to preserve employment relationships in a phase of low demand by shortening the working hours with the consent of employees, but also by slightly cutting the wages. Main motives of the municipal experiments were to improve the quality and availability of services and to invent new working patterns.The experiment provided an interesting opportunity for analysing shorter working hours in Finnish full-time culture. Empirical test with six-plus-six hour model showed, that model is technically clever and serves indisputable benefits for organisations, but is socially insensitive. It neglects the social qualities of time.