Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2009-05-04-Speech-1-117"
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"en.20090504.17.1-117"2
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"Madam President, obviously we know that there was stalemate, but better no agreement than a bad agreement in my view.
We always knew that it would be inevitable, but it took so long to actually acknowledge it. I think that is more to do with some parliamentarians wanting to appear tough to their electorate than with anything else.
Once a majority for the Parliament voted to get rid of the opt-out, there could of course be no deal as 15 countries use it, as we have already heard.
I support the opt-out of the 48-hour limit of the Working Time Directive as long as it is voluntary. I attempted during committee to tighten this up and make sure that you could not sign the opt-out at the same time as the contract and that you could opt out of the opt-out at any time. Indeed, that is what the Council also proposed. It is important for flexibility, for the worker and the employer alike. Why should someone not be allowed to earn overtime if that is what they choose to do?
My fear also was that people could be forced into illegal work and would not then be covered by health and safety legislation, including the dangerous machinery directive.
Far more of a problem are multiple contracts and the definition of autonomous work. These are abused far more than the opt-out, but the Council did not really move substantially on this and Parliament did not really push that point either.
As far as ‘on-call’ time is concerned, I believe that all ‘on-call’ time should be classed as working time. I was pleased that there was movement from the Council on that.
As I said at the outset of this debate five years ago, we should deal with the Court rulings of SIMAP and Jaeger and nothing else. Maybe we will do that in the future and address the health sector alone.
Finally, I must say I am pleased that we have kept the opt-out of the 48-hour limit, particularly for fire-fighters in the UK who would have had extreme difficulty providing cover if the opt-out had been lost, and I congratulate them on their campaign."@en1
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