Initiative in the Bundesrat: Bayern wants to shake up rules on rest and maximum hours

With an initiative in the Federal Council, Bavaria wants to relax the regulation for the maximum daily working time of ten hours. The state government justifies this with the progressive digitization of the working world. "Modern communication technology increasingly offers scope for work that is independent of time and location and offers companies and employees a higher degree of flexibility," it said after the cabinet meeting on Monday in Munich.

Rigid working time regulations, in particular the uninterrupted rest period of eleven hours, are therefore no longer up-to-date. Many employees wished to be able to interrupt the work of the family for a few hours, to do the last job in the evening and to start working as usual the next day.

Last year, trades and employers' organizations also demanded that the legal working time rules be softened. The rigid regulations on maximum daily working hours and rest periods no longer fit in with operational reality and international competition driven by globalization and digitization. (What exceptions the working hours law already allows, read here.)

The parliamentary group of the SPD criticized the current Bavarian push. Under the guise of a necessary flexibilization of work in the sign of digitization, the ax will be applied to employee protection, said the economic spokeswoman Annette Karl. This should allow employers to let employees work longer than ten hours at a time. Affected would be in the first place in any case poorly paid, physically demanding jobs, said Karl.