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Time and pay are the two elements in every wage employment relationship that can be measured in quantitative terms.' These two fundamental aspects of the working conditions associated with different types of jobs in different countries can therefore be compared in detail and the results communicated. Many very different employment problems can also be expressed in terms of time or money, which allows a broad comparative approach to be taken. Proposals to improve working conditions are thus often expressed in terms of either money or time, since this makes it easier to amalgamate a wide range of disparate individual interests and to evolve suitable responses. Wages are paid in whatever is the relevant national currency, but time can be measured in universally accepted units -- which is certainly one of the reasons why, from 1890 onwards, a central demand of the labour movement all over the world was the call for an eight-hour working day and also why it was the subject of the first ILO Convention (the Hours of Work (Industry) Convention, 1919 (No. 1)), and, subsequently, of a number of other Conventions on working time.
Over the past 20 years, however, the organization of working time has changed considerably. New forms, such as part-time working, have gained ground; in some countries working time is being reduced in order to create jobs, and in others it is being extended; new formulas combining education and work are emerging; and working time is no longer automatically organized on a weekly or annual basis, but a more flexible approach is being adopted. As a result it is increasingly unclear what should be measured, or, indeed, whether actual time worked is being measured at all. Consequently, the "currencies" of daily and weekly working time, which were valid up till now throughout the world and are the basis of several ILO Conventions, are losing ground to a wide range of other, special "currencies".
This article is an attempt to examine some of these issues. The greatest difficulty in such an attempt is capturing the range of realities and developments in the various parts of the world. Because of recent sizeable reductions in working time in some European countries, the differences in working time between these countries and the developing...