About time

The 1980s saw a revolution in work patterns which officialdom has ignored. Virtually all the new jobs went to women; many took on part-time work or home work, or agreed to flexible hours. By now, ‘normal’ hours and a ‘normal’ week are available only to a minority; yet the welfare system and labour laws are still addressed to a world of full-time factory workers. In this study Patricia Hewitt details these changes, and suggests how trade unions, employers and the State should respond to them. The industrial approach should be positive: flexibility gives employers the chance to make fuller use of their capital plant and of the skills of women as well as men, and offers more workers the freedom to arrange their hours as they wish. But it is open to exploitation, and poses childcare problems. Radical reforms of existing labour and welfare regulations are needed tot protect the majority who now work flexible or unusual hours, and their families.