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04-05-2005:
Working time Directive: European Parliament
proposals on the right track The CESI reacted with satisfaction to the draft report by Alejandro Cercas, European Parliament rapporteur, on the proposal for the amendment of the working time Directive 2003/88/EC. “Mr Cercas’ proposals are in line with CESI’s demands to a broad extent and, in our view, are on the right track”, said CESI General Secretary Helmut Müllers. “This is predominantly the case as far as regulating on-call time is concerned and in particular regarding the so-called ‚inactive part of on-call time’. In the CESI’s view, this time must also count as working time. We think the rapporteur’s proposal to employ another basis of calculation is a good compromise.“ “As for as what is known as the Opt-out, Mr Cercas goes even further than the CESI by suggesting it be abolished“, Müllers observed. “The independent trade unions are not against the opt-out in principle, but nevertheless are asking for the abuse of the opt-out, which is particularly prevalent in the United Kingdom, to be curtailed. Additional safeguards may however already be sufficient and the employers’ desire for flexibility could thus still be accommodated.“ “What we can take from this is the fact that the health and safety of the employees are better protected by the proposed amendments than was the case in the original European Commission proposal. We are thus on the right track“, the General Secretary concluded. The relevant CESI statement from 10 March 2004 can be downloaded from the "Documents" section. |
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