Fresh laws on 48-hour working week rejected by parliament

REVISED legislation to ensure employees cannot be forced to work more than a 48-hour week under the terms of their employment was thrown out by the European Parliament yesterday when it voted for an amended version.

They objected to countries being allowed to opt out from the law, and said any time employees spend on call must be treated as hours worked.

Minister for Labour Affairs Billy Kelleher said the Government has not availed of the opt-out in the current legislation and has made special provision to include junior hospital doctors by 2009 in the 48-hour maximum working week.

But he said the Government supports the rest of the member states in believing that the rules should allow some flexibility and that the details should be left up to individual governments and their social partners, including unions.

Dublin MEP Proinsias De Rossa said the opt-out is being used by 15 countries — up from four just five years ago. The parliament’s decision to have no exceptions to an average 48-hour week worked out over a year did not deprive employers of the right to negotiate flexible hours.

The amendments on on-call workers ensured no employee could be obliged to put the life or health of themselves or those they served at risk by being forced to work inhumanely long hours, he said.

“Human beings are social beings. They are not machines and they should not be treated as such in the workplace. A person applying to an employer for a job has no freedom to refuse to sign a form saying they are denying themselves the right to the coverage of the Working Time Directive, so to argue that abolishing the opt-out is in some way an attack on freedom is not right: it is actually an attack on the abuse of an employee who needs to work in order to live,” he told the parliament.

The parliament heard 66% of workers in Britain who use the opt-out are not paid for the overtime they do, and doctors’ associations and unions had campaigned for a limit on hours as a health and safety issue.

Independent MEP Marian Harkin said the EU needed to send the clear signal that social Europe is alive and well.

The original 1993 directive has had to be revised following two court rulings defining doctors’ on-call time as working time. The revised draft was deadlocked for the past three years. Following yesterday’s vote it will go back to conciliation between the parliament and the member states. If they cannot agree on it the bill will fold.