UK opt-out under threat
On 11 May 2005, the European Parliament voted in favour of a report produced by its Committee on Employment and Social Affairs on the European Commission's proposal to amend the Working Time Directive 93/104/EC1.
UK opt-out should go
On the 48-hour working week, the commission proposed to preserve member states' right to allow individuals to opt out while tightening up the conditions for its application when there is no collective agreement in force or no such agreement can be concluded.
The committee considers the main aim of the Directive to be to guarantee the health and safety of workers. Where the commission was seeking to strike a balance between the protection of workers' health and safety and the need to give companies more flexibility in the organisation of working time, the committee considers it necessary to strengthen the protection of workers' health and safety despite the challenges of new forms of organisation of working time.
The committee finds that the current use of the opt-out in the UK is problematic and has led to abuses in two respects: the damage to workers' health and safety (from working excessive hours) and the individual worker's freedom of choice (the worker having no real freedom of choice in the decision to opt out of the 48-hour week if the employer requires it). It is proposed that the UK opt-out must end within three years of the amended Directive coming into force.
On-call and "working time"
The commission proposed to alter the definitions of working time, so that the inactive part of on-call time was not considered "working time".
The committee accepts that having to consider the inactive part of on-call time as "working time" has posed financial problems and serious difficulties for the smooth running of health centres in particular, and where there is a shortage of trained professional personnel. However, it does not find the commission's solution to be the best one.
The committee proposes to keep the current definitions. But, particularly in member states where public service management is threatened by staff shortages, it should be permitted, by collective agreement or by regulation, to allow for the inactive part of on-call time to be treated in a different way when calculating the maximum working week, subject to compliance with general health and safety principles.
Reference periods and flexible working
Under the Directive, the standard rule is that the 48 hours a week minimum must be calculated using a reference period that does not exceed four months. The commission had proposed to allow member states to extend the reference period to not more than 12 months, subject merely to consultation with the social partners concerned. The committee accepts that annualisation might be acceptable under conditions guaranteeing reasoned and reasonable implementation with checks and a guarantee of protection of health and safety.
The committee wants to amends the Directive so that it requires individual member states to regulate to encourage employers to take account of the needs of workers to reconcile work with family life. In particular, measures should ensure that:
Next steps
The amendments proposed by the European Parliament must now go before the Council of Ministers for approval later this year.
1The report can be found at: www.europarl.eu.int.
