Five-shift system could create jobs in Antwerp's chemicals sector

A collective agreement signed at Bayer in spring 1999 signifies a historic breakthrough for trade unions in the Belgian chemicals industry. The deal prevented a number of job losses by introducing a 33.6-hour working week and a five-shift system. Unions hope that the agreement will set a precedent for the general introduction of the five-shift system in chemicals companies in the Antwerp area.

The closure of a section of a Bayer plant in Belgium early in 1999 threatened 350 jobs. However, a recent collective agreement providing for the gradual reduction of working time to 33.6 hours a week by the year 2002 and the introduction of a five-shift system has enabled 160 of the 350 jobs to be saved. Similarly, at Hercules, another Belgian chemicals company, where BEF 2.6 billion of new investments was due to lead to the redundancies of 40 employees, the introduction of the five-shift system and a 33.6-hour working week has reduced the jobs losses to 10.

In these cases, the reasons for the reorganisation of working time are defensive in nature: the preservation of existing employment. However, trade unions are now proposing similar systems throughout the chemicals sector in Antwerp, in an offensive strategy which could possibly create jobs. The firms concerned currently use a four-shift system and a 42-hour working week.

Collective agreements providing for working time reductions have so far translated these hours cuts into extra days of leave, rather than cuts in actual weekly hours. For example, the working time reductions to an average 34.5-hour week by 2002 provided for by a previous agreement at Bayer would mean an extra 10 days' leave a year which, added to normal holidays, public holidays and extra days off for length of service, could give each worker a total of around 80 days off a year. In order to stem this trend, Bayer has decided to replace its four-shift system with a five-shift system with actual weekly hours at the reduced level, alternating blocks of three to four working days with two to three days off. The extra time off arising from the working time reduction is thus incorporated into the normal work schedule, abolishing the additional leave due to hours cuts (though normal holidays and days off for length of service remain intact).

In the Netherlands, experience with the five-shift system goes back successfully to the 1980s. The five-shift system is considered much more manageable and socially acceptable than the traditional system, and leads to fewer days off sick (working seven days in a row on shifts can prove very difficult). In addition, it is easier to plan working schedules if time off in compensation for working time reductions is already integrated into the normal week. According to the Belgian General Federation of Labour (Fédération Générale du Travail de Belgique/Algemeen Belgisch Vakverbond, FGTB/ABVV) , the system could result in the creation of several hundred, perhaps up to 1,000, additional jobs in the chemical industries in Antwerp, and it is thus seeking to introduce the system sector-wide. The newly created jobs could be supported by using the training facilities included in the sector's Sira project, which combines part-time training and part-time work. The project is financed by an annual contribution of 0.2% of total paybill.