Reducing the work week in Russia to four days should be discussed with the participation of trade unions and employers. This was reported in the Ministry of Labor, commenting on a letter received from the Federation of Independent Trade Unions of Russia (FNPR) with a proposal to reduce the number of working hours.
At the same time, the ministry noted that according to Russian law, employers cannot set a working week longer than 40 hours, while the lower border does not exist.
“Thus, within the framework of social partnership / collective agreement / in organizations, both the number of hours per working day and the number of working days themselves can be reduced today,” RIA Novosti quoted the Ministry of Labor as a text.
Previously, the FNPR stated that they support the idea of reducing the working week to four days. The representative of the Federation, Elena Kosakovskaya, emphasized that salaries should not be allowed to fall.
“The FNPR supports the idea of reducing the working week as a means of optimizing the time of work and rest, but with the mandatory preservation of the previous wage,” her words are quoted on the federation website.
Kosakovskaya emphasized that in some countries, industries, and enterprises, 35-hour workweeks have become the norm thanks to high-productivity work. She cited the experience of European countries as an example. So, according to her, ten countries of Europe with the shortest working week "are at a high level of socio-economic development." The number of working hours is decreasing and in the whole world, says Kosakovskaya.
“However, in our country, so far, enterprises are switching to a four-day or three-day work week not for good reasons. This is due to financial difficulties and entails a significant reduction in the salary of employees, ”the representative of the organization explained.
FNRP is the largest union of trade unions in Russia, in which more than 20 million people are members.
“The future is in the four-day work week”
Earlier, Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev spoke about a four-day working week. Speaking at the International Labor Conference in Geneva on June 11, the head of government noted that a shift to a shorter working week is possible in the future.
“It is very likely that the future lies with the four-day working week as the basis of the social and labor contract,” he said.
As an example, Medvedev cited a New Zealand company that arranged an experiment - management introduced a four-day company, which led to an increase in productivity by 20% and reduced employee stress.
“The constant pursuit of success turns into systemic fatigue, chronic stress. People sometimes just burn out at work. All this leads to a decrease in labor productivity, which, in turn, affects economic performance, ”the Prime Minister explained.
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VTsIOM later conducted a case study on this topic. According to its results, published on June 24, 48% of Russians are opposed to reducing the working week to four days, while only 29% expressed support for the initiative. 67% are convinced that a decrease in working hours will lead to a drop in production, while 43% said that the main fear is rising prices and falling wages.
“The prospect of a radical - by 20% - reduction in the working week is more likely to scare than attract Russians. Fears are mainly associated with a likely reduction in income, which is critical primarily for the poorest and most vulnerable segments of the population - pensioners and villagers, ”commented the results of the study, the head of the All-Russian Public Opinion Research Center Valery Fedorov.
Regional experiment
In general, reducing the working week is a promising task, however, it’s premature to proceed to its implementation, said Valery Ryazansky, chairman of the Federation Council Committee on Social Policy.
“This is a tempting horizon, but it can only be achieved with very high productivity, high production efficiency, high wages. To say that this is a close reality is very premature, ”he told RT.
According to Ryazansky, private entrepreneurs can implement such an initiative, since the work schedule is determined individually individually.
“A seriously socially oriented leader always does this with the participation of the labor collective or trade union. There you can define any work schedules: sliding, remote, interchangeable. The main thing, in the end, is that this would suit both the employees themselves and the employers, and, in particular, so that wages do not suffer, ”the senator emphasized.
At some enterprises, the transition to a shorter working week while maintaining the level of affluence of employees is possible now, says Anna Zyryanova, lecturer at the Institute of Business and Business Administration (IBDA) of the RANEPA.
“This is not about intellectual workers, where the working day is poorly standardized, but about those professions and those jobs where you can really set a specific length of the working day: for example, a factory worker. If technology allows increasing the number of units of output per hour, then this solution is effective, ”she explained in an interview with RT.
However, Zyryanova admitted, such a transition requires serious investments - modernization of production and retraining of employees.
To test this idea, it would be possible to conduct an experiment in a particular Russian region, Oleg Babich, a member of the Council of the Confederation of Labor of Russia, suggested in a conversation with RT.
“I think it makes sense to conduct a regional experiment if it comes to putting these proposals into practice. Of course, there is no way to do without experiment here, ”he concluded.