Working time opt-out to remain for now

The Government has won an important battle in its campaign to retain a worker's right to opt out of the maximum 48-hour working week.

At a meeting of European Union employment ministers last week, the UK was able to gain enough support to prevent a vote taking place on a proposal to amend the Working Time Directive to remove the opt out.

Since the issue can only go back to the European Parliament once a vote has taken place, the UK's success in postponing the vote means that any decision on amending the Directive has now been postponed - probably until next year.

Previously, the European Parliament had voted to remove the opt out in stages by 2012, but this can only happen if agreed by the Council of Ministers.

The European Parliament's proposals to amend the Directive also include counting on-call time as working time in most cases and allowing for average working hours to be calculated over a full year, rather than the current period of 17 weeks.

With the UK taking over the EU presidency for six months on 1 July, the issue is not likely to be raised again until at least 2006.

Hours of work and Rest breaks and rest periods    XpertHR's employment law reference manual provides guidance on hours of work and rest breaks and rest periods.

Working time: the case law    XpertHR's case law reports service rounds up what the courts have said about working time.