LEADING industry bodies yesterday poured scorn on a European Commission proposal to limit Britain’s opt-out from the Working Time Directive by giving unions a veto power over working hours.
The Institute of Directors (IoD) said the proposal, which would give unions a veto over whether employees can decide to work more than 48 hours in a week, was a “back to the 1970s” approach. The Federation of Small Businesses described the proposal as a “bureaucratic nightmare”, while the CBI said it was “excessively bureaucratic”.
James Walsh, the IoD’s head of European and regulatory affairs, said: “The Commission’s plans are rooted in a 1970s approach to labour market policy, at a time when we need to be competing in the global markets of the 21st century. We need a more flexible approach to employee-employer relations.”
Britain was the only European Union member to implement the 1993 directive’s opt-out, which enables companies to ask employees to work an average of more than 48 hours a week in a four-month period.
The Commission has been conducting a ten-year review of the opt-out, after complaints by unions that it was being abused. One draft proposal, confirmed by the Commission yesterday, would give unions a veto over whether employees can agree to work longer hours.
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The Commission insisted yesterday that no final proposal had been agreed. The final proposal will be drafted at the end of this week and voted on by commissioners next Wednesday, before a vote by EU members.
A government spokesman yesterday said: “We believe that everyone has the right to work more than 48 hours if they choose to. It is not up to governments or the European Union to stop them. If there is a problem of abuse of the opt-out, the solution is to end the abuse, not to end the opt-out.”
He said the directive had been introduced under health and safety legislation, for which Britain had a “record second to none”.