Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2004-02-09-Speech-1-077"
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"en.20040209.5.1-077"2
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"Mr President, Commissioner, rapporteur, we are dealing with a report which I believe to be of profound social, legal and political importance.
This is because the completion of the internal market must lead to an improvement in working conditions, because the Community will support and complement the Member States’ actions in the fields of health and safety protection of workers, as laid down in Article 137 of the EC Treaty, and because all workers have the right to a restriction of maximum working time, to daily and weekly periods of rest, and an annual period of paid holiday, as well as to work in conditions which respect their health, their safety and their dignity, as laid down in the European Union's Charter of Fundamental Rights.
The issue is very simple, therefore, on a theoretical level. The first aspect is the reference periods for the application of Article 6 (maximum weekly working time): four months, as laid down in Article 16 of the Directive, or, where appropriate, the possibility of extension in the cases laid down in Article 17: up to six and twelve months if implemented by means of collective agreements or agreements between social partners. The second aspect is the power not to apply Article 6 if the worker is in agreement, the system of opting-out, as has been said here already.
Clearly, a consequence of extending the reference periods would be to increase the flexibility available to companies. The only limit would be the eleven hours of rest daily or the twenty-four hours of rest weekly, but the directive would be losing its purpose and only regulating the maximum four-monthly, six-monthly or annual working time, depending on the particular case.
With regard to opting-out, the potential for abuse is obvious, particularly in a situation of legal equality but not economic equality between the protagonists in working life.
Directive 93/104/EC is intended to guarantee a higher level of health and safety protection for workers, as reiterated in Directive 2000/34/EC. We should therefore seek effective solutions to the cases and activities which require them, such as those involved in the judgments mentioned here, Simap or Jäger, but with objective criteria and conditions, to be used generally and in a non-abusive fashion; and under no circumstances turning the exception into the general rule.
I therefore believe that before the vote we should seek agreements which combine legal guarantees for workers with creating more flexibility, in the spirit of Directive 93/104/EC."@en1
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