39 Hours — Engineering the Birth of the Shorter Working Week?

Abstract

The birth of the 39 hour week in the engineering industry in 1981 was conceived in the heat of the strike‐torn summer of 1979. And the prolonged period of gestation proved to be something of a watershed far beyond the confines of the industry in which it was conceived. As the date of the event drew closer, and the negotiations between the parents of the 1979 Agreement got ever more local and domestic, the message coming back from the industry was one of varied, confused, and at times discordant, response.

Citation

Bastin, G. and Fahey, W. (1982), "39 Hours — Engineering the Birth of the Shorter Working Week?", Employee Relations, Vol. 4 No. 3, pp. 3-5. https://doi.org/10.1108/eb054993