The authors hypothesize that three broad factors affect
the degree of workers’ control over the timing and the
total hours of their work: the institutional and
regulatory environment within the country, labor market
conditions, and management and labor union strategies.
Drawing from their interviews in 2000 with managers,
public sector policy-makers and administrators, and
union leaders, as well as from previous literature, they
illustrate how these factors actually affected working
time and employee control over working time in the
United States, Australia, Japan, Germany, Italy, the
Netherlands, and Sweden. In some cases, employers and
labor unions negotiated contracts that increased
employee control over working time and provided
employers with greater flexibility; in others, employee
control over working time remained unevenly distributed
across the occupational spectrum. pdf
