German working-time law is still eight hours a day. Up to ten, with time off in lieu. Between shifts, eleven hours of rest. That is the text. DW asks whether the eight-hour day is “under threat”. The threat is a coalition agreement, not a repealed paragraph. CDU/CSU and the SPD, 2025: the possibility of a weekly cap instead of a daily one, aligned with the European directive. The average ceiling there: 48 hours a week. A daily cap is not what the EU requires.

Rainer Dulger, BDA: almost everyone uses 48, except us. The law, he says, is from the fax era. Tourism, projects, restaurants, peaks. Merz, after a visit to UPM Leuna in September: 12 hours, with works-council approval, three-day weeks, time for families. “Working more than eight hours is not exploitation.” It should be done. DW: the chancellor seemed surprised the exception already exists — emergencies, health, security, chemicals, refineries, up to 12 hours.

The SPD would have left the law. It accepted it in the contract. A draft from the ministry, June 2026, Bärbel Bas: schedule changes only with a collective agreement, health rules, electronic time-tracking. The CDU, immediately against. Dulger: withdraw, rewrite, “steeped in mistrust”. The ZDH: a breach of the coalition. The reform, on hold. Bas resigned, personal reasons, DW writes. At Labour, Alexander Schweitzer. We do not know, from the text, whether he shares Merz’s hurry at Employers’ Day.

Annika Klose, SPD: flexibility is not a one-way street. The child to football in the afternoon, then work — yes. The boss: tomorrow 9 a.m. to 10 p.m., against your will — no. In October, a seven-page paper, “Selbstbestimmt statt dereguliert”: the labour working group, the Jusos, 60plus, the SPD women’s wing. Tagesschau: the collective-agreement clause, a red line. Full electronic recording. A 40-hour weekly average cap. A premium from the first extra hour. Joint decisions, not only the employer’s right to direct. Without the clause, no bill through the Bundestag.

The DGB’s Yasmin Fahimi, to tagesschau: not back before 1918. Ver.di’s Frank Werneke: 13 hours in a row by managerial order, against health. Hundreds of flexible agreements already exist. “Kein Handlungsbedarf.” Merz expected a draft in the autumn. An economic package in July took flexibility off the table, Zeit writes. There is no vote. There is a fight over who decides the hour you leave.

Until a new paragraph, what remains is eight hours and an exception of ten. After a paragraph, what remains is whether the week is a shield or 13 hours. Between them, a chancellor who discovered the 12-hour shift at Leuna and a party that put “not deregulation” on the cover.

Image: Ansgar Koreng, Paul-Löbe-Haus, Berlin, 23 December 2015, CC BY-SA 3.0 DE, Wikimedia Commons. The photograph is of the parliamentary building, not a 12-hour shift at Leuna.

Sources consulted: Is Germany's eight-hour workday under threat? — Deutsche Welle; What is planned for the Working Hours Act — tagesschau.