American companies need to heed lessons learned this year in France, where the work week was shortened to 35 hours for people employed at firms with more than 20 employees.

        Did calamity ensue? Was it apocalypse now? Or did the business of business grind on unimpeded?

        “We've seen it as a positive thing,” said Martha Depenbrock, spokeswoman for the Procter & Gamble Co., which has four plants, administrative offices and about 2,000 employees in France.

        “We've really been able to get some productivity breakthroughs.”

        About three years ago, a former French employment minister, Martine Aubry, pushed through the reform to about 6 million workers. It called for the hourly reduction but with no corresponding shrinkage in wages.

Not everyone approves

        Surprisingly, the measure barely is supported by workers, who now labor about an hour less each day, begin their weekends on Friday afternoons or end them on Monday afternoons.

        Some working mothers chose to stay home Wednesdays, when French schoolchildren traditionally are off. Executives also covered by the mandate discovered that they had two weeks more vacation each year.

        When it was implemented, conservative French economists howled that the measure would cause companies to invest in other nations that did not have the shorter week.

        They insisted that it could create a moribund work force accustomed to unreasonable privileges.

        One might assume that the result reduced unemployment, brought workers a better life-work balance and spurred a travel-leisure economy.

        That's not what has happened, said Laurent Delmas, the French-born chief executive of Work Life Balance, in Cyprus, Calif. A recent study by the Ministry of Employment shows mixed feelings among workers, he said.

        “About 2/3 of the people are more stressed because they must do the same work but in less time,” Mr. Delmas said. People will swap more stress for fewer hours on the job, though, as six of 10 workers believe the law makes their life better.

        Initially, the measure only applied to companies with more than 20 workers. Last week, French bakers staged a protest march because they don't want to pay people for 39 hours when they are working only 35 hours.

        Bakeries will come under new rules in 2002.

        P&G negotiated a flexible work paradigm for employees covered by the ruling, Ms. Depenbrock said, and has spent capital to boost shampoo production.

        The French ministry allowed P&G to compensate workers who must work more than 35 hours a week with more holidays or a more flexible schedule, Ms. Depenbrock said.

        Do not expect a flurry of American firms to embrace the French model, said David J. Walsh, associate professor of management at Miami University in Oxford. And workers may pay a price, too.

        “Getting wage increases from an employer will be very difficult,” he said. “(Workers can) forget about a raise.”

        Also, Americans in recent years are working more hours — not fewer hours.

        “I don't see it in the cards for the U.S.A.,” Professor Walsh said. “We are going in the opposite direction. I don't see it happening with this administration and maybe not in a million years.”

        E-mail jeckberg@enquirer.com. Past columns at Enquirer.com/columns/eckberg.

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