Europe’s employment ministers yesterday night managed to seal a whole year of discussions on the Working Time Directive, after the Council instructed the Permanent Representatives Committee to finalise a text for the formal adoption of a common position.
The new deal on the Working Time Directive restricts workers from working more than an average of 48 hours a week, but allows for flexible arrangements if they agree to work longer.
The Working Time Directive establishes minimum requirements concerning the organisation of working time, daily and weekly rest periods, breaks, maximum weekly working time, annual leave and certain aspects of night work, shift work and patterns of work.
The key issues resolved by the Council relate to the so-called “opt-out clause”, the possibility of not applying the maximum weekly working time (48 hours) if the worker agrees to work longer hours.
Malta has been an active supporter of retaining the opt-out clause to allow workers work for longer than 48 hours a week if they so wish.
The UK government had rejected original EU proposals to grant equal rights for temporary workers, but in return for dropping their long-standing opposition, British ministers secured a firmer opt-out from the working time directive.
So the compromise text now provides for the possibility of the opt-out clause, accompanied by a number of conditions in order to guarantee the protection of health and safety of workers.
The deal became possible only after Spain and other countries overcame objections to granting the UK an opt-out that allows it to increase the weekly cap to 60 hours.
As a safeguard, workers will not be able to sign waivers consenting to increased hours, during their first month of employment and cannot be penalised for declining.
Spain, Belgium and Greece resisted the compromise, labelling it a step back from the EU goal of greater security for workers, but most countries expressed their satisfaction with the deal.
Slovenian Minister for Labour, Family and Social Affairs Marjeta Cotman, whose country still holds the EU Presidency until the end of June, said: “We have succeeded in finding a key balance between the employment security of such workers and labour market flexibility. The Working Time Directive brings flexible working time arrangements on the one hand and ensures the protection of workers’ rights on the other.”
At the same time, ministers also reached agreement on strengthening the rights of temporary agency workers, granting them the same rights in areas like holiday and sick pay as their permanent colleagues.
Due to heavy UK lobbying, this right is only granted after employees have been in the job for 12 weeks, while the Commission had proposed a so-called ‘grace period’ of just six weeks.
The Council reached political agreement on a common position after a compromise on the balance between ensuring the protection of temporary agency workers and, at the same time, allowing sufficient flexibility in labour markets which have very different traditions of concluding agreements between the social partners.
The main element resolved by the Council concerned the principle of equal treatment, possible exceptions to that principle and the maximum length of assignments to which such exceptions can apply.
The directive is to be adopted under the co-decision procedure with the European Parliament.

mvella@mediatoday.com.mt