Working time Directive extended to mobile workers in road transport

A new EU Directive on the organisation of working time for mobile workers in road transport came into force on 23 March 2002. The text regulates a range of areas, including maximum weekly working time, rest breaks and limits on night work. It excludes self-employed drivers for four years.

A new Directive extending some of the protection of the 1993 EU Directive (93/104/EC) concerning certain aspects of the organisation of working time to mobile workers in the road transport sector gained the approval of the Council of Ministers and the European Parliament (EP) in February 2002. The text of Directive 2002/15/EC on the organisation of the working time of persons performing mobile road transport activities was published in the EU Official Journal on 23 March 2002 and Member States have three years in which to transpose its provisions into national legislation.

Extension of Directive to excluded sectors and activities

The adoption of the new Directive represents the final stage in the European Commission's plans, first outlined in 1997 (EU9707138N), to extend the 1993 working time Directive to the sectors and activities which the Directive excluded. These plans culminated in:

• the signing of an agreement on the organisation of working time by the social partners in the maritime sector on 30 September 1998 following an earlier draft accord (EU9802182F). This agreement was subsequently given legal effect by Directive 1999/63/EC, which appeared in the Official Journal on 2 July 1999.

• the conclusion, also on 30 September 1998, by the social partners in the rail sector of an agreement to apply the working time Directive to their sector on the basis of an earlier accord (EU9808122F);

• the adoption of Directive 1999/95/EC (which appeared in the Official Journal on 20 January 2000) concerning the enforcement of provisions in respect of seafarers' hours of work on board ships calling at Community ports, aimed at ensuring fair competition by providing a mechanism for the compliance by ships of all flags with the abovementioned agreement and subsequent Directive covering working time in the maritime sector;

• the conclusion, in March 2000, of an agreement by the social partners in the civil aviation sector adapting the principles of the 1993 Directive to the needs of this sector (EU0004238N). This agreement was subsequently given legal effect by Directive 2000/79/EC which was adopted in November 2000 and appeared in the Official Journal on 1 December 2000; and

• the adoption in May 2000 (EU0005249F) of Directive (2000/34/EC) amending Council Directive 93/104/EC concerning certain aspects of the organisation of working time to cover sectors and activities excluded from that Directive- the so-called 'horizontal' Directive. This Directive, first proposed in November 1998, extended the 1993 Directive to non-mobile workers in excluded sectors and to doctors in training, and provided basic protection for mobile workers and those engaged in other work at sea.

The road transport sector

The issue of regulating working time for mobile workers in the road transport sector proved to be more problematic than in other sectors. The EU-level social partners in this industry – the Federation of Transport Workers' Unions in the European Union (now the European Transport Workers' Federation, ETF) and the International Road Transport Union (IRU) representing employers – tried during the course of 1998 to negotiate an agreement on working time in road transport. However, the negotiations broke down on 30 September 1998 (EU9809127F) and the Commission subsequently issued, on 18 November 1998, a proposal on the organisation of working time in this sector as part of its general package of measures to extend the Directive (EU9901144F).

However, it proved difficult to reach a consensus on this issue during Council debates. Whereas the social partner negotiations had foundered chiefly on the definition of working time, debates in the Council revolved around whether or not to include self-employed drivers in the scope of the Directive (EU9910203F). In an effort to break a deadlock which persisted throughout 1999, the Commission issued new suggestions in June 2000 (EU0007260N), proposing a temporary exemption for self-employed drivers. The issue then began to move and political agreement in the Council on a common position on an amended text from the Commission was reached on 22 December 2000 (EU0101290N).

The text was amended by the EP on 14 June 2001 (EU0107224N) and, as the Council could not accept all of the EP's amendments, under the co-decision procedure the text was passed on to a Council/EP conciliation committee. The committee's text was issued on 17 December 2001 and approved by the EP on 5 February and by the Council on 18 February 2002. It came into force on 23 March 2002, the day it appeared in the Official Journal. The final text excludes self-employed drivers from its scope for the first four years of operation, after which the Commission will undertake a review of the situation.

Main provisions

The main provisions of the new Directive are as follows:

• working time is defined broadly as all the time when mobile workers are at the workstation, at the disposal of the employer and exercising their functions or activities. This includes a wide variety of functions in addition to driving. The definition also includes time during which workers are ready and waiting to take up normal work;

• the maximum working week is 48 hours, although it can be extended to 60 hours as long as the average is 48 hours over a reference period of up to four months;

• a 30-minute break should be taken after six hours of work, or a 45-minute break after between six and nine hours of work;

• the working day (over a 24-hour period) must not exceed 10 hours for night workers;

• derogations from the provisions on the maximum working week and night work for objective or technical reasons or reasons concerning the organisation of work, may be adopted by means of collective agreements, agreements between the social partners, or if this is not possible, by laws, regulations or administrative provisions (provided there is consultation of the representatives of the employers and workers concerned and efforts are made to encourage all relevant forms of social dialogue), although the reference period for the calculation of the maximum working week may not exceed six months;

• records of the working time of mobile workers must be kept for at least two years by employers; and

• Member States must comply with the Directive by 23 March 2005. This constitutes a three-year implementation period. Self-employed drivers are exempted from the scope of the Directive for the first four years after the implementation date (ie until 23 March 2009). The situation will then be reviewed and the Commission will propose either their inclusion or continuing exclusion.

Commentary

The coming into force of the new Directive means that the working time Directive has now been extended, either fully or in part, to the range of sectors and activities excluded by the 1993 text. A number of mechanisms have been used to ensure that the Commission's plans to extend the Directive have been implemented. Where it has been possible, the relevant social partners have negotiated agreements tailoring the provisions of the Directive to the needs of their own sector. This has been the case in the maritime and civil aviation sectors. In the rail sector, the social partners agreed to apply the Directive to their sector. The Commission issued legislation to achieve the complicated process of extending the Directive 'horizontally' to non-mobile workers in a range of excluded sectors and to doctors in training. Finally, following the breakdown of social partner talks in the road transport sector, a Directive building on the elements of consensus in these social partner talks has finally been adopted. This means that many more workers around the EU will be protected in terms of the maximum length of the working week, rest breaks, breaks between working days and limits set on night work. (Andrea Broughton, IRS).