Talks on new working time directive postponed

Malta yesterday kept insisting on changes to be included in the European Commission's controversial proposals regarding the organisation of working time.

Health Minister Louis Deguara, who represented Malta at the last Employment, Social Policy and Health Council to be held under the Dutch presidency, proposed a new amendment to the Commission proposals.

Speaking to The Times following the meeting, Dr Deguara said the working time directive was longly debated. However, member states remained divided on the issue and the Dutch presidency decided to postpone the discussion to a later stage under the presidency of Luxembourg.

Dr Deguara said that Malta, together with various other countries including the UK, continues to insist on the possiblity for member states to retain the opt-out clause, whereby employees will still have the right to choose whether they should work over-time for as many hours as they want or not.

In its original porposals, the Commission is stating that the maximum number of working hours permitted, including the opt-out clause, should not go beyond 65 hours a week.

Even an agreement on the definition of on call time seems to be far off the mark. Reacting to a European Court Judgement, the Commission is proposing to introduce a new category of on-call time in addition to working time and rest time and states that the inactive part of on-call time does not constitute working time for the purposes of the directive.

However, it also gives member states the option, under national law or by collective agreement or agreement between the two sides of industry, of counting the inactive part of on-call time as working time. On-call time is defined as the "period during which the worker has the obligation to be available at the workplace to intervene, at the employer's request, to carry out his activity or duties".

The proposal defines the "inactive part of on-call time" as the "period during which the worker is on call but is not required by his employer to carry out his activity or duties".

The inactive part of on-call time does not constitute rest time, which is counted separately. In the proposal, if the worker is residing at the work place but is resting and not actually working, his on-call time will not be counted as working time. At present, under the Court of Justice rulings, if the worker has to be available but is not required to be present at the workplace this has to be considered as rest.

Dr Deguara said that in Malta on-call time is already considered as part of the working time and so the island is already compliant with the recent European Court judgement with regard to the calculation of inactive period of work.

He said that on this issue Malta is proposing that the new clause will not apply to countries where on-call time is already included in the working time calculation. He added that this porposal was seconded by Slovenia and argued that if the Commission proposal is approved as it stands now it will mean that Malta will have either to double its medical staff or reduce the medical service.