The European Parliament and EU governments are starting a new round of talks aimed at resolving a dispute over the EU’s Working Time Directive.
The UK and 14 other EU member states have an opt-out from the directive, objecting to the 48-hour limit it sets on the working week.
But in December members of the European Parliament voted to scrap the opt-out.
MEPs also say on-call time counts as working time. A decision on that would affect key sectors such as healthcare.
Active or Inactive
The EU governments and the commission have sought to distinguish between “active” and “inactive” on-call time, to give employers some flexibility.
“Active” on-call time means the worker being at the workplace, while “inactive” means on-call, but not required to be at work. “Inactive” would not count as working time unless decided otherwise by national law or a workplace agreement.
But the parliament argues that any period of on-call time is to count as working time.
The conciliation involves a 27-strong delegation from the parliament, representing various countries and political groups, and a similar delegation from the 27 member states’ governments.
UK Works Too Hard
An overwhelming majority of Labour MEPs backed the decision to scrap the UK’s opt-out – defying the UK government position.
The UK government’s own impact assessment says the directive has already cost UK businesses £1.9bn annually. According to the Open Europe think-tank, the cost to the UK is as much as £3.9bn annually.
Supporters of the opt-out argue that it would also enable thousands of part-time or retained firefighters to keep their jobs.
Side Issues
David Cameron spoke about a “Broken Society” in his party conference speech last October. He said a lot of it was due to over working of parents, ignoring family time. Maybe if parents and Britain as a whole didn’t work so darn hard people might actually be able to enjoy themselves, or even see their children a bit more. It seems that greed has caught many workers these days, the more hours you work, the more money, but when do you have time to spend it. The rest of Europe seem to have the right idea, work an appropriate amount but also have time to enjoy yourself. You can always make money, but you can’t always make up for lost time.
