Working Time Directive

The EU’s 1993 Working Time Directive allows businesses to negotiate individual opt-outs in employee contracts so that employees can work more than 48 hours per week.

The Employment Committee of the European Parliament has recently voted to scrap the individual opt-out. This would strip employees of their right to work more than 48 hours per week. The amendment has yet to go to full vote at the European Parliament in mid-May.

Both the CBI and the Forum of Private Business (FPB) have expressed their disappointment at the decision. The FPB has commented that removal of the opt-out ‘will critically harm the flexibility of Britain’s labour market crippling smaller firms’.

Businesses will no doubt find, if the opt-out abolition is confirmed, that they will need to consider recruiting additional staff as well as denying existing staff valuable, and often much needed, overtime. Watch this space!