In Great Britain collective agreements have never had a great deal of significance in relation to actual working time, but in the 1980s and 1990s their significance declined even further. Meanwhile, however, real and fundamental changes have been taking place at the level where working time is actually regulated in practice, where trade unions exert direct control over working time in companies and in the workplace. The current mixture of traditional and innovative working time arrangements is giving rise to a wide range of working time patterns with a high incidence of unsocial working hours. This leads to a polarisation between the working times of men and of women, a phenomenon which is coming up against growing criticism in British society.
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