Nations still flouting EU working time rules

Date: 07/12/00

By John Shelley

A EUROPEAN Commission report on how member states have implemented EU-wide working time rules reveals that many employees are still being denied the basic legal protection to which they are entitled.

The paper shows that progress on introducing the rules governing maximum working hours still differs widely between member states - seven years after the regulations were approved at Union level.

While some countries now have national laws which ensure that workers enjoy virtually all the rights they should be guaranteed under the working time directive, others are lagging behind in bringing key elements of the rules online.

The report says several governments have illegally excluded whole categories of workers from the legislation's guarantees, while others have run roughshod over the maximum working week rules with loopholes for overtime. It adds that some member states still have no special provisions to govern night work and in others, the rules on annual leave are being abused.

The report also criticises governments for making their regulations unclear and imprecise, pointing out that if the Commission finds it difficult to untangle the legislation to work out what rights an employee has, it must be virtually impossible for workers themselves to do so.

"As the directive is intended to establish legal rights for individuals, the persons concerned must be able to ascertain the full extent of their rights and, where appropriate, rely on them before national courts," it insists.

The working time directive, approved in 1993, sets limits on the hours an employee can work, from rules on daily breaks to minimum entitlements on annual leave. Under the rules, which member states were supposed to implement by 1996, workers must have an 11-hour break between shifts and a rest break every working day of six hours or longer. Employers should be required to give their workers an uninterrupted rest break of 24 hours every seven days and ensure the average working week does not exceed 48 hours.

Italy fares particularly badly in the Commission paper, which points out that Rome has still not introduced any laws on daily rest periods and that its legislation on annual paid leave does not guarantee the minimum four weeks. Other countries are criticised for failures in specific areas. Belgium, which is home to the EU institutions, is attacked for a law which prohibits workers from taking any paid leave during their first year of employment.

When the working time directive was first approved, the UK launched a case in the European Court of Justice to try to get it overturned. Now, ironically, the UK is among the countries which have implemented the rules most effectively, transposing many of the regulations in the Union directive directly into national law.

A European Commission report on how Member States have implemented EU-wide working time rules reveals that many employees are still being denied the basic legal protection to which they are entitled.