A controversial draft reform of Germany’s Working Hours Act (Arbeitszeitgesetz) has landed on the table of the Federal Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs (BMAS), and the fiercest battles are brewing not over whether to relax rules, but who gets to relax them. Labour Minister Bärbel Bas’s proposal would open the door to flexible maximum hours almost exclusively for companies that are bound by a collective bargaining agreement – leaving the rest of the economy locked out.
Under the draft, the long-standing average weekly maximum of 48 hours over a 12-month period could be adjusted only via a collective agreement. In such cases, even the mandatory 11-hour rest period could be waived. Firms without a union contract or a works council would be denied these flexibilities. At the same time, the reform would introduce a sweeping new obligation: all employers must electronically record the start, end and duration of daily working time on the same day. Trust-based working time (Vertrauensarbeitszeit) would remain permissible, but subject to stricter conditions. Only microbusinesses and certain specific collective-bargaining arrangements would be exempt from the recording requirement.
Business groups have reacted with sharp disappointment. Jana Schimke, chief executive of the German Hotel and Restaurant Association (DEHOGA), called the plan “a blow to the Mittelstand,” arguing that tying flexibility to union coverage disadvantages small and medium-sized firms. The Federal Association of System Gastronomy (BdS) echoed the criticism, pointing to official data from 2025 showing that only 48.7 percent of employees in Germany were covered by a collective agreement – and in the hospitality sector the figure was barely 23 percent. The system-gastronomy industry, which generated around €36 billion in revenue in 2025, already struggles with falling sales, rising insolvencies and a severe skilled-labour shortage affecting roughly 64 percent of its companies.
Surprisingly, new research from the Institute for Employment Research (IAB) suggests that the actual demand for extended daily hours may be limited. In a survey of 9,300 establishments conducted in the first quarter of 2026, only 9 percent of collective-bargaining-covered firms reported needing daily working times exceeding ten hours. IAB researcher Enzo Weber offered an alternative: allow flexible hours by mutual agreement between employer and employee even without a collective contract, but tie that permission to mandatory health monitoring. He argued such models should be designed to provide legal certainty for all businesses, not just unionised ones.
Political tensions within the governing coalition are already surfacing. Carsten Linnemann of the Christian Democrats (CDU/CSU) criticised the draft for not matching the coalition agreement’s commitments. On the employee side, the German Trade Union Federation (DGB) released a survey showing that three out of four workers prefer a maximum of eight hours per day. The debate is also fuelled by the high volume of unpaid overtime – 638 million hours were recorded in 2024 alone. The coalition committee is expected to take up the draft in late June or early July, after which it will proceed through departmental coordination, cabinet, the Bundestag and the Bundesrat.
