Brussels to rekindle revision of overtime rules

Brussels will soon reopen talks on the controversial changes being proposed to the Working Time Directive. A first meeting is set for the first week of December.

In 2009, the European Parliament and the Council had failed to agree on the changes being proposed.

Following this, employers – represented by BusinessEurope, the European Association of Craft, Small and Medium-sized Enterprises and the European Centre of Employers and Enterprises providing Public Services – and the European Trade Union Confederation, appearing for workers, informed the European Commission they had agreed to try and find a solution.

According to EU rules, both sides will have nine months to come up with an agreement to revise the directive, which will then have to be approved by all member states. In case of failure to reach a compromise agreement, the Commission will issue a new proposal itself.

The issue is of fundamental importance to Malta, which is one of 15 EU member states that still use an opt-out clause allowing them to give workers flexibility in connection with overtime.

During the failed 2009 negotiations, Malta had to fight tooth and nail to protect its stand in favour of an opt-out as European unions generally are against the idea and want to eliminate the use of such a clause.

The position was also supported by the EP, particularly by the Socialists, leading to an impasse for a final agreement with member states.

The directive, which aims to protect workers in terms of health and safety, provides for the maximum working week in the EU not to exceed 48 hours, meaning a maximum of eight hours of overtime per week in the case of Malta.

The opt-out clause allows workers to do as much overtime as they like, without any maximum limit.

Unlike other member states, Malta’s position to retain the opt-out clause was also supported by both major local trade unions, reflecting the overtime culture in the work ethic here.

Malta argues that its labour market needs flexibility to be able to function well because restrictions will incur companies more running costs.

The UK is also a strong supporter of the opt-out clause.

Latest try....

The idea of modifying the Working Time Directive was initially raised in 2000.

At the time, the European Commission wanted to tackle a series of problems that were not resolved by the existing legislation and by the case law of the European Court of Justice. The issues that needed to be addressed were: to clarify the application of the directive in terms of on-call time in some sectors of activity, to allow more flexibility in the calculation of daily working time and to re-examine exemptions to the 48-hour limit.

The main stumbling block between the two institutions concerned the opt-out clause, which Parliament would not hear of, and on-call time, which MEPs wanted to consider as working time.