Workers may be signing away rights

The European Commission is to re-examine rules that limit the working hours of most employees to 48 hours a week.

The Employment and Social Affairs Commissioner, Ms Anna Diamantopoulou, yesterday launched three months of consultations on how the Working Time Directive is being implemented.

She expressed concern about excessive use of an opt-out clause in the directive, which allows workers to sign away their right to a working week of less than 48 hours.

"We appreciate the importance of freedom of choice of individuals as to how they work. But in practice the measures that the directive foresees to safeguard the workers' interests when opting out are not properly implemented. We need to find a solution that balances the interests of all concerned. We also need to consider how best to define working time, to avoid what is currently a flexible legislative framework becoming one that creates unnecessary burdens," she said.

Thirty-three per cent of workers in Britain have signed agreements that allow them to work longer than 48 hours a week and 16 per cent of British workers, or four million people, exceed the 48-hour limit each week.

"We can't be sure that workers who sign an opt-out agreement at the same time as an employment contract have a real choice," Ms Diamantopoulou said.

Among the issues to be considered during the consultation is the application of the directive to doctors and other medical staff. The European Court of Justice ruled last year that hours doctors spend on call must be counted as working hours, even if the doctor is allowed to sleep during those hours. A German doctors' organisation calculated that the ruling meant that 15,000 new doctors would have to be employed in Germany at a cost of about €1.75 billion..

The Commission has invited interested parties to make suggestions as to how to define working time following the court ruling, how to apply the opt-out clause and measures to improve the balance between work and family life. A Commission report showed that Irish employees work an average of about 40 hours a week, a little below the EU average.