Polish city hopes to be springboard for 35-hour work week revolution

The new labour change, however, only applies to Włoclawek’s civil servants

Last year, during the parliamentary elections, the Polish Left Party (Lewica) ran on a platform that promised to cut down the working hours per week to 35 from the current 40. Although the party didn’t win, it hasn’t forgotten its mission as from 1 September the small city of Włocławek will officially institute a 35-hour working week, even if that change will only apply to employees of the city council administration.

The mayor of Włocławek, Krzysztof Kukucki, who is from the Left Party received an official congratulatory greeting from his co-partisans, who were quick to describe the announcement as a revolutionary example that would spread to the rest of the country.

Actually, Włocławek is not the first city in Poland to try this, as since 1 July, city officials working in Leszno have also had this right. Włocławek, however, is a larger city hence why it is making more of a splash in the news world.

What’s more, the administrative employees can decide how to organize their 35 working hours. They can either have five workdays of 7 hours each or four working days. Their salaries will stay the same.

Mixed reactions to the new labour policy

It goes without saying that the workers affected by the change are rather pleased by it, however, it cannot be said the same about the residents of Włocławek who will continue working the standard 40 hours a week.

Here are some of the residents’ opinions expressed to Gazeta Wyborcza:

“I would prefer that such experiments were first carried out in a private company, and not with public money.”

"With taxpayers' money, you can get one day of work a week."

“They will drink less coffee, exchange less gossip, make less mess, and the salary will be the same or maybe even higher. They produce nothing. The taxpayer works for them. There is nothing to be happy about.”

Mayor Kukucki has assured that the services to citizens will remain of the same quality, saying more details will be provided in the future regarding the scheme. He added that he intends to expand this to also include employees of public companies working for the city administration.

OECD statistics show that the average Polish employee works hundreds of hours more per year than the average German, Dane or Dutch.