Mixed progress in talks on working time

Date: 23/04/1998

By Simon Coss

THE European Commission is to put forward plans next week for rules governing working conditions in the Union's shipping industry.

It has promised to make a formal proposal for EU legislation following last month's agreement between the social partners - shipowners and trade unions - on a provisional deal.

The accord, based on rules drawn up by the International Labour Organisation (ILO), sets out maximum working hours and minimum rest periods and confirms the principle that seafarers will be granted compensatory leave if they have to exceed these limits while at sea.

Agreement on the new rules between the shipping unions and the industry's employers followed more than five years of intensive negotiations. "A key goal for both parties throughout the long and sometimes difficult negotiations has been to ensure that European shipping is treated in the same way as its competitors in the global market in which it largely operates," said Alfons Guinier, general secretary of the European Community Shipowners' Association, shortly after the agreement was finalised.

Brian Orell, his opposite number in the Federation of Transport Workers' Unions in the European Union (FST), also welcomed the deal. "I am very pleased that seafarers, who are so often excluded from EU legislation, will finally have similar health and safety legislation afforded to them as other workers currently enjoy," he said.

The shipping industry was one of a number of sectors excluded from the provisions of the EU's 1993 Working Time Directive which, among other things, set out a maximum 48-hour working week.

Other industries left out of the original legislation were aviation, road and rail transport, inland waterways, sea fishing, 'other work at sea' (notably oil-rig crews) and doctors in training.

Negotiations between the social partners in these other sectors are having mixed success. Workers and employers in the rail industry have struck a provisional deal, but want the other transport sectors to do likewise before they formally close negotiations.

However, while agreement in the trucking sector appears imminent, talks on inland waterways have run aground, with employers, many of whom are small family businesses, saying they do not want EU rules.

Meanwhile, negotiations between airlines and aviation industry trade unions have totally broken down, forcing the Commission to begin drafting its own rules to be imposed on the sector. The airlines accuse the pilots' unions of "hi-jacking" the talks by bringing up unfounded arguments about unsafe working conditions.

The Commission and the unions argue that while EU countries undoubtedly have some of the best records in the world for airline safety, the sector is coming under increasing commercial pressure and harmonised rules should be introduced before a major disaster happens.