Agreement has now finally been reached by the EU Employment and Social Affairs Council on the working time opt-out and definitions of on-call time, as well as new proposals to extend employment protection to temporary agency workers. All that is required now is approval from the European Parliament.

The choice to opt out of the maximum 48 hour week remains. Changes agreed were as follows:

• On-call time will be split into “active” (working time) and “inactive” on-call time (neither working time nor rest time!) Active on-call time will be counted as working time; Member States can choose whether or not inactive on-call time counts as working time. However, inactive on-call time may not be counted as rest time.
• There will be a new limit of 60 hours per week for those who do opt out, unless the social partners agree otherwise (65 hours per week for workers who opt-out if inactive on-call time is counted as working time).
• Workers will not be able to opt-out at the time of signing their contracts of employment, nor during their first month of employment and they must not be victimised for not signing or withdrawing their opt-out.
• The opt-out must be renewed annually.
• Employers must keep records of the working hours of opted-out workers.

These new rules are expected to take effect in late 2008 or early 2009 and have to be implemented within two years.

Don’t forget that working time includes time worked for all employers - so do ensure that:

• your contracts stipulate, as a minimum, that if workers take on additional employment, this must be declared to you
• such workers are aware of the 48 hour maximum, and that if any secondary employment is likely to take them over 48 hours, they must sign an opt-out
• you remind them that they must still be able to work their hours for you to a satisfactory standard - ie they must not be too tired to perform safely and effectively - the Working Time Regulations are a piece of health and safety legislation, and there is a risk to you (and those with whom your employee’s interact) if their working hours result in unreasonable tiredness.

This entry was posted on Friday, September 19th, 2008 at 9:44 am and is filed under Employment, New law which affects your business. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.