From Early Supporters to European Cooperation

The First Supporters

Over the following months, I got in touch with further academics, institutions and organisations, among them the Institute for Employment Research (IAB) in Nuremberg and its president, Mr Franke.

What interested me above all was the question of how new forms of part-time work could be accompanied and documented scientifically. The more I engaged with the subject, the clearer it became: there were many individual initiatives, but hardly any networking. Many people were working on similar questions, often without knowing of one another.

An Important Conversation in Cologne

One trip stands out particularly in my memory: my journey to Cologne on 27 May 1987. Dr Fritz-Jürgen Kador, Managing Director of the Confederation of German Employers’ Associations, had invited me to a personal meeting. Dr Müller-Hagen, who was deeply engaged with questions of part-time work, took part as well.

For me, this invitation was a great mark of recognition. It showed that jobsharing had by now attracted the attention of important players in the world of work, and that my work was being noticed.

The conversation centred on how my project could be supported. We discussed how employers’ associations could be made aware of the topic and how information about jobsharing models already in practice could be gathered systematically. Surveys, interviews and the collection of practical examples were planned.

One thing became very clear that day: interest was not lacking. What was lacking was information, experience and contacts. That was precisely what I wanted to change.

The Idea of a European Cooperation

The more conversations I held, the stronger my conviction grew: jobsharing and qualified part-time work needed a shared platform. Not only in Germany, but across Europe.

I had already discussed this idea with the other stagiaires and visiteurs during my time at the European Parliament. We had seen how differently the various countries handled flexible forms of work, and how much each country could learn from the others if only there were a place where this knowledge could come together.

At some point during those months, the thought turned into a decision. Talking about it was not enough. Something had to come into being that went beyond individual conversations and encounters, something that activities from different European countries could join, for a genuine and lasting exchange of experience.

From this conviction, EURO-TZA e.V. – the European Cooperation for the Promotion of New Forms of Part-Time Work – was finally founded in October 1987.

What had begun as a research interest developed step by step into a European network. And I was right in the middle of it, no longer only as a researcher, but as a founder.

In this context, there is something else I would like to mention. At the time, I wrote to some of the authors who had addressed jobsharing (employment law) in their work, to inform them about the association EURO-TZA e.V. Recently, quite by chance, I found the correspondence I had had with Dr Harald Danne in an old box.

„… I have taken note with great interest of your activities in relation to jobsharing and am of the view, in particular, that the „European Cooperation for the Promotion of New Working Hours“ which you have founded offers broad and promising prospects. …

I would be very pleased to receive further information about your job-sharing project, and I am happy to make myself available for a more extensive exchange of ideas …"

(Dr. Harald Danne, 22. Juli 1987)

Lines like these still show me today how seriously our work was taken back then, and how much people at that time were beginning to take an interest in new paths in the world of work. It is a small but precious find: direct proof that our message was getting through.