Based on data from 109 agreements, mainly in the engineering industry, discusses the trend to arrange flexible working schedules at plant level and the potential impact of these agreements on employment security and job creation.

The present overview on existing research addresses the double implication of working-time standards as legal (or contractual) norms, on the one hand, and socially established normality, on the other. Looking primarily at the evidence on the statutory 35-hour week in France, the author discusses...