Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2004-02-09-Speech-1-067"

Predicate	Value (sorted: default)
rdf:type	lpv_eu:Speech2
dcterms:Date	"2004-02-09"^^xsd:date2
dcterms:Is Part Of	lp_eu:Organisation of working time2
dcterms:Language	"en"^^xsd:language2
lpv:document identification number	"en.20040209.5.1-067"2
lpv:hasSubsequent	lp_eu:2004-02-09-Speech-1-0682
lpv:speaker	lp:Elizabeth Lynne2
lpv:spoken text	"Mr President, I am pleased that the Commission brought forward the consultation document. It would have been useful, however, to have brought it forward before Mr Cercas drew up the report, but I am very pleased that we were able to table oral amendments. Nevertheless this is not the ideal way of working and I would like to register that point. I tabled a number of amendments, a lot of them with the PPE-DE Group, and some of my own. The main point – and I am very pleased the Commissioner touched on this – is that the individual opt-out should be kept, but that it should be truly voluntary and measures should be taken to tackle any abuse. But as Mr Bushill-Matthews said, that abuse is not as widespread in the UK as the rapporteur leads us to believe. Indeed, as Mr Bushill-Matthews and the rapporteur have repeatedly said, the authors of the research – Barnard, Deakin and Hobbs – stated that the abuse was widespread. Those people have distanced themselves from what you have written in your report and indeed would distance themselves from your statement today. To answer Mr Hughes' point, one of the reasons for maintaining the opt-out is that in the UK we do not have collective agreements. That is one of the main reasons we use the opt-out. Other Member States use derogations because they have collective agreements. Decisions can be made between both sides of industry: trade unions and employers will get together and decide what they want to do on the Working Time Directive. But because we do not have that – at least not to any great extent – we need the flexibility for our businesses to be able to cope. Wages are not a competence of the EU, nor should they be. We should not be discussing pay. But workers in the UK are on low wages, even though we have a national minimum wage. They quite often add to their take-home pay by doing overtime. If we get rid of the opt-out, there will be many cases of workers not being able to do overtime and therefore not getting a reasonable pay level. We are not the only country that uses it either: Germany, France, the Netherlands, Spain and Luxembourg are all either using it or going to use it in the health or catering industries. Another problem is the length of reference period. Tourism and agriculture have a particular problem because of different working patterns and because of the times of year that they work. The Commission must also look at the SIMAP and Jaeger judgments. It is very important that we do that on health and come forward with proposals. I hope enough MEPs will join us tomorrow when we vote, in particular those Labour MEPs who voted against us in committee and against the UK Labour Government."@en1
lpv:spokenAs	member; ELDR (1999-07-20--2004-07-19)3 substitute; Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Common Security and Defence Policy (2002-01-17--2004-07-19)3 member; EMPL (2002-01-17--2004-07-19)3 unknown; Liberal Democrat Party (1999-07-20--2004-07-19)3 member; Delegation for relations with the countries of South Asia and the South Asia Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) (2002-02-07--2004-07-19)3
lpv:unclassifiedMetadata	"Lynne (ELDR )."1

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