THE Working Time Directive, adopted on November 23rd, 1993, sets out maximum working hours and minimum daily rest breaks and annual holidays for a wide range of workers.
Employers may not force hours on their workforce unless they fall into a wide category of exemptions.
Derogations are allowed for some workers in transport, the hospital services, law enforcement, prisons and security, the emergency services, agriculture, tourism, gas, water, and electricity production - basically any field where round-the-clock service is expected. Those also exempted include managers, those working in family businesses, clergymen, and journalists.
The directive provides for:
. a minimum daily rest break of 11 consecutive hours;
. a rest break where the working day is longer than six hours;
. a minimum rest period of one day a week;
. four weeks' annual paid holiday;
. night work must not exceed eight hours a night on average.
All member states are required to implement the legislation by November 23rd, Although the right to a fourth week of holidays may be postponed for a further three years. Member states may also make additional provisions - and many do so.
The directive was proposed by the Commission under the legal competences provided by Article 118A - this encourages collective EU action to standardise minimum health and safety at work, agreed by qualified majority vote.
Britain contends bad faith on the part of the Commission, saying that its definition of health and safety is too broad and that the measures are a threat to competitiveness.
When the directive was debated many of its original provisions were watered down in the Council of Ministers to meet British criticism and in the hope of bringing Britain on board. In the end, to the intense irritation of some ministers, having diluted the provision, Britain abstained in the otherwise unanimous vote, and then announced its intention of challenging the legal base of the measure in the European Court of Justice.
At the time the British minister Mr David Hunt, also described the measure as trivial in its consequences.
