No easy solution on working time

Date: 22/05/1997

TRADE unions are warning that the much-anticipated White Paper outlining plans to extend the scope of the EU's 'working time' rule to cover a host of sectors excluded from the original legislation is likely to prove a disappointing anticlimax.

The long-delayed document - which Social Affairs Commissioner Pádraig Flynn now plans to publish before the end of June - is intended as a first step in updating the EU's 1993 Working Time Directive.

That measure regulated the hours to be worked by employees in a range of sectors, but specifically excluded significant parts of the workforce including most transport workers and junior doctors.

The forthcoming White Paper is meant to address the needs of these sectors.

The Federation of Transport Workers in the European Union (FST) claims, however, that what is likely to emerge in June will be an imprecise document which will fail to address concrete problems.

“I am quite sure we will not get a solution. Flynn will produce a paper because he has committed himself to doing so, but it will be very vague,” said FST general secretary Hugues de Villile.

Villile argues that while Flynn's Directorate-General for social affairs (DGV) insists on trying to draft a 'horizontal' directive designed to encompass the needs of many varied sectors, it can only fail.

He maintains that a more practical approach, at least for transport workers, would be to adopt the 'vertical' system - setting down rules on a sector-by-sector basis - as suggested by officials in the Directorate-General for transport (DGVII).

DGV's own evidence suggests that it will be extremely difficult to come up with a solution to suit all cases.

In a written answer to the European Parliament earlier this year, Flynn admitted that while an agreement appeared to have been reached for rail workers, it could only be implemented “subject to the condition that similar provisions be applied to other transport sectors at the same time”.

He conceded that there had been “no comparable progress to report in respect of road transport, inland waterway transport or sea fishing”.

But DGV officials argue that the horizontal approach, whatever its drawbacks, is still the preferred solution. “There is no appetite for a whole load of new directives and the horizontal route would get rid of sectoral problems,” insisted one Flynn aide. They also stress that the June White Paper will not be the end of the story, with a full legislative proposal due to emerge next year. “There will certainly be nothing on the table before 1998,” warned one expert.