Truckers key to work-time deals

Date: 24/09/1998

By Simon Coss

THE European Commission hopes that a deal on truck drivers' working hours could pave the way for agreements in other sectors which fall outside the scope of existing EU working time rules.

Last week, representatives of workers and employers from the road haulage industry failed to agree on a formula which would bring the industry into line with the EU's 1993 Working Time Directive.

The trucking sector was excluded from the provisions of this law, along with several other key areas including railway staff, civil aviation, fishing crews, people working on the Union's inland waterways, those engaged in 'other work at sea' (notably on oil rigs), and doctors in training.

In response to the failure of last week's negotiations, the Commission said it would give the two sides until next Wednesday (30 September) to resolve the deadlock. After that, it will begin drawing up a deal to be imposed on them.

Aides to Social Affairs Commissioner Pádraig Flynn indicated this week that the Commission was keen to settle the issue one way or another so that progress could be made in the other excluded sectors. “We believe that once road transport is sorted, the others will fall into place,” said one.

But trade union representatives seemed rather less confident than the Commission that a solution to the trucking question would break log-jams in other excluded sectors.

“If an agreement was reached in road transport, there is no doubt there would be some movement in other areas,” said a spokesman for the Federation of Transport Workers' Unions in the European Union (FST). But he warned that this movement was unlikely to be enough to remove all outstanding obstacles.

“In civil aviation it is difficult as well. We have been trying for five years to enter into dialogue with the airlines and they only agreed to talks in June,” he said, adding that negotiations on inland waterways had so far been a “complete failure” and that discussions in the fishing sector were also “blocked”.

The FST is pessimistic about the chances of a positive outcome to the 30 September trucking talks and believes that, if the Commission imposes its own solution, this will not encourage much progress in other sectors.

Despite these gloomy forecasts, the Commission is determined to give trade unions and employers in all of the excluded sectors as much leeway as possible to come up with negotiated agreements on working time. “We have always said we wanted to give priority to the sectoral negotiations,” said one official.