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PAGE EUROPEAN REVIEW
THE EU'S WORKING TIME DIRECTIVE WAS first passed in 1993. In an effort to get the United Kingdom to sign up to it, two exceptions were allowed to its provisions. These give a Member State the option to vary the period over which the average working week (this must be less than 48 hours) is calculated and to allow workers to opt-out of any maximum limit if they wish to do so. The workings of both these exceptions had to be reviewed seven years after the deadline for them to be put into national law. This period ran out in November last year. The European Commission has therefore published a report for consideration by the Council of Ministers, the European Parliament and the social partners. The position on the ground in the UK has been well documented in numerous reports (see issue 15 page 4). In the only country to have made use of the opt-out, hours of work have hardly reduced at all. Four million people work more than 48 hours a week on average. That's 700,000 more than in 1992 when there was no long hours protection (Labour Force Survey). A government study found that 1 in 6 of workers now work over 60 hours a week compared to just 1 in 8 of all UK workers in 2000. The number of women working over 60 hours has more than doubled from 1 in 16 in 2000 to approximately 1 in 8 today. A TUC poll revealed that only one in three people at work know that there is a 48-hour average working week limit and two out of three people who say they work regularly more than 48 hours a week have not been asked to opt out of the working time regulations. One in three of those who have signed an opt-out say they were given no choice .
Not surprisingly the EU report contains a substantial section on the UK which backs up the facts above. Average working time of full-time employees appear to be about 3 hours more per week in Britain than in any other EU Member (see graph). These figures only include hours worked in a person's major employment, they do not count the time spent in a second job. The Commission also draws attention to the fact that far more workers in the UK have signed opt-outs than work more than 48 hours per week. It speculates that this could be because managers do not realise that they are exempted already without the opt-out and also that requirements for record keeping have been reduced for employees that opt-out. Perhaps more importantly the Commission stresses that the Working Time directive is a health and safety measure and examines the effect on British workers of its widespread evasion. In general it states 'The link between long working hours and the health and safety of workers is well-established' and that 'A number of studies conclude that a working week exceeding 50 hours may, in the long term, have harmful effects on the health and safety of workers'. However, due to the fact that regulations in the UK mean that only the opt-out agreement itself has to be kept as a record by employers, not enough data is available on long-hours workers to draw more specific conclusions.
The Commission report stops short of recommending that the opt-out
be removed from the directive but the European Parliament which
recently published two similar investigations is more forthright. It
'Calls for the abolition of the individual opt-out' and goes on to
draw attention to 'evidence of widespread abuse of this option, to
the detriment of the health and safety of millions of workers, who
have little or no freedom to decide whether to accept or refuse it in
a situation where the administrative authorities have effectively
ruled out any real possibility of control and verification'.
Reaction to the review of the directive in the UK has split along predictable lines. The TUC welcomed the decision of the European Parliament having run its 'It's about time !' campaign against the opt-out throughout last year. However the CBI commented 'UK employees have more choice about the hours they work than those almost anywhere else in Europe. They value that flexibility and so do employers'. Both social partners will now be consulted on what to do next though the situation is complicated by some other Member States wanting limited opt-outs to cope with court decisions on on-call working in sectors such as health (see our last issue, page 6). It may be that the British government which is believed to favour the status quo will offer stronger safeguards with regard to how the opt-out is regulated in order to continue its existence.
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