Gitta Connemann, the Federal Government’s representative for small and medium-sized enterprises (Mittelstand) and a member of the CDU, has publicly rejected the recently released draft regarding the working time reform, branding it a violation of the coalition agreement.
Speaking to the “Neue Osnabrücker Zeitung”, Connemann asserted that the newly available draft reads like a counter-proposal to the coalition contract, and crucially, that it disadvantages small and medium-sized businesses. She pointed out that the agreement originally stipulated a maximum weekly working time instead of rigid daily limits, and the allowance of trust-based working hours rather than the introduction of a new culture of increased control. Furthermore, the coalition aimed for bureaucracy reduction, not added mandates.
Connemann warned that if the promised flexibility ultimately only applies to collective bargaining agreements, millions of workers and a large segment of the Mittelstand would be excluded. She deemed this approach not only economically unsound but also politically unviable.
She also raised concerns that implementing working time monitoring could trigger a new wave of bureaucratic oversight. Connemann maintained that requiring every minute of work to be documented demonstrates a fundamental lack of trust in employees and businesses, arguing that the flexible weekly working hours must be accessible to everyone.
The draft, announced by the Federal Ministry of Labour, led by Bärbel Bas (SPD) on Thursday, proposes that flexible weekly maximum hours should henceforth be agreed upon exclusively through collective bargaining agreements, replacing the strict daily limits.
The coalition partners, the CDU/CSU and the SPD, had previously agreed to establish “the possibility of a weekly rather than a daily maximum working time” in line with the European working time directive. The original plan involved dialogue with social partners on concrete implementation. The coalition agreement stated that the requirement for electronically recording working hours would be regulated in a non-bureaucratic manner, with appropriate transition rules for small and medium-sized enterprises. It also affirmed that trust-based working hours would remain possible without time tracking, consistent with EU regulations, and no employee should be forced to work longer hours against their will.
It is worth noting that the EU’s working time directive mandates that Member States limit working hours. The average working time for any seven-day period, including overtime, must not exceed 48 hours. This 48-hour average is calculated over a reference period of up to twelve months, and for night work, the average working time must not exceed eight hours per 24-hour period.
