Founded by ATTAC (Germany) and Collectif Roosevelt (France) in 2013, “The European Network for the Fair Sharing of Working Time” originated as an informal structure open to representatives of organizations, experts, and activists. Currently, our Network gathers multiple organizations, including trade unions, NGOs, citizen movements, scientists, policymakers, and members of the European Parliament from twelve countries: France, Germany, Belgium, United Kingdom, The Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, Spain, Austria, Hungary, Slovenia, and Poland.
Current Status
In March 2023, we formally constituted the European Work-time Network as a non-profit organization registered in France. We are currently holding monthly webinars to discuss working-time reduction policies and organising our upcoming annual meeting.
Trajectory
We have held five meetings in the past decade.
- Constitution of the Network
November 19th, 2013 European Center of Youth (Strasbourg)
The constitution of the network started in the format of a public seminar with 50 participants.
We heard presentations from 4 MEPs, 3 researchers, and 2 NGOs (Attac Germany and Collectif Roosevelt).
2. Building a Common Strategy
October 20th-21st, 2016 European Parliament (Brussels)
After a gap period, the constitution of the Network continued with a format change. We focused on creating links between key organisations with a private meeting to develop common strategies.
35 participants from 7 countries were present: unions, NGOs, policymakers, and scientists. Attac Germany and Collectif Roosevelt established a partnership with the Rosa Luxembourg Foundation and the Office of the MEP Thomas Händel to cover the new requirements of this format.
3. Establishing Working Groups
October 17th-18th, 2017 RLS Office (Brussels)
Three working groups were created to make the Network move forward between the conferences and address key questions: What are the concrete proposals available? What strategies and actions? How to structure our Network and our identity?
4. Aligning Objectives
June 7th, 2018 FGTB Office (Brussels)
The three objectives of this meeting were the following. First, to evaluate the progress of the network. Second, to better define the main objective of the network. Third, to prepare for the October conference.
5. Assessing our Progress
October 25th-26th, 2018
Considering information exchange as the main driver of the network, the 2018 meeting focused on presentations from key organisations to map the experimentations across Europe and on identifying our main problems and successes so that members can better know how to help each other.