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Latest News

Working Time Directive back on the agenda

by Personnel Today 21 May 2004
by Personnel Today 21 May 2004

The
European Commission has put the Working Time Directive back on the agenda, by suggesting
proposals for a crackdown on so-called abuses of the directive.

Currently
Europe’s working week is limited to 48 hours, but staff can choose to ‘opt-out’
of this.

Now
four amendments to the current system have been suggested:

●
Tightening the conditions under which individuals can opt out

●
Allowing changes on the basis of collective agreement between employers and
employees

●
Retaining the individual opt-out where no collective agreement is reached

●
Removing the opt-out altogether.

TUC
general secretary Brendan Barber hailed the decision as “a defeat for the British
Government which has been arguing that the opt-out should simply stay.”

However,
the CBI has pledged to “fight tooth and nail” against the removal of the
opt-out. And David Yeandle of the manufacturers’ organisation EEF said there
was a possibility that the individual opt-out could go and employers would need
to have contingency plans ready if this were to happen.

By
Mike Berry

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Personnel Today

Personnel Today articles are written by an expert team of award-winning journalists who have been covering HR and L&D for many years. Some of our content is attributed to "Personnel Today" for a number of reasons, including: when numerous authors are associated with writing or editing a piece; or when the author is unknown (particularly for older articles).

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Personnel Today
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