Decent Working Time: New Trends, New Issues

The International Symposium on Working Time (ISWT) is an interdisciplinary research network set up in the late 1980s. In the ensuing period there has been no lack of policies and debates on this issue. These include the processes of reducing working time and increasing the flexibility of working time; the growth of part-time working; the consequences of these policies on employment and working conditions; and the transformation of social working time norms, brought about as much by the reductions of working time as by the sizeable new types of flexibility introduced into schedules and working patters established in most industrialised countries. All these matters have constituted the crux of the work carried out by the ISWT. In particular, its research has aimed to examine, analyze and evaluate government working time policies and the strategies of employers and trade union in the main countries of the industrialised world (Europe, North America, Japan and Australia) from the perspective of international comparison. The effects of these policies and strategies on employment, working and living conditions have also been a focus for research.