Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2008-12-15-Speech-1-101"
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"en.20081215.14.1-101"2
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"This directive does not provide for the 40-hour working week to be extended to a 60-hour one. Nor does it require employees to work 60 or 65 hours a week, including overtime. What it does, instead, is lay down frameworks and conditions under which that might be possible. For this reason, the 60 hours that we are discussing cannot be equated with the current provisions of national laws, where they limit the weekly working time to 40 hours or less. Such equations are inappropriate, because they cast the directive in a misleading light.
However, this directive does impose a limit on the maximum possible working time. What no one has mentioned today is that many people in financial institutions, law firms, investment companies and so forth, regularly work weeks of 60, 70 or more hours, without this causing any raised eyebrows. This directive sets an upper limit which cannot be exceeded.
We also have to put ourselves in the shoes of employers, particularly small and medium-sized enterprises, who undoubtedly find it very hard to survive in the market if they face too many formal obstacles. We have to understand their situation, especially where at certain times they have to harness all their forces to meet their contractual obligations, and where of course people work longer hours. Yet this is done with the employee’s consent, and for additional payment, of course, and not just automatically every week.
In brief, the systems of on-call time also vary greatly. We have all mentioned doctors, but we are forgetting, for example, campsites, family-run hotels and many service activities where people work, are on duty and sometimes have to be on call. In conclusion, I think that the Council has proposed a kind of compromise, and we will obviously progress to the conciliation phase, and I hope we find a reasonable solution for that phase."@en1
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